We decided to risk a moth trap last night and the weather luckily held out for some good results. The trap takes about eight egg boxes and in the one my husband is holding you can see what a treat they can be when you lift them up and turn them over to examine the contents. We had some 'firsts' again for our particular 'patch' of Pembrokeshire, unlike the Clouded Border below which we see a lot of at this time of year.
The biggest treat was seeing a couple of Garden Tigers, something we've not seen for a couple of years. As a child of the 50's however, I remember finding lots of what we called 'woolly bear' caterpillars. I never knew they grew into these amazing moths and sadly, what was once a common feature of gardens, is now a rarity.
To put the icing on the cake we also found a solitary Ruby Tiger in the box. This is the one and only time I've ever seen one of these and whilst it wasn't wildly coloured it had a wonderful rusty reddish hue to its wings and started to vibrate its wings ready for flight. Seeing the wonderful colour underneath was just lovely.
No comments:
Post a Comment