Fifty shades of grey

I don't do moths. Not until times get desperate — and times are getting desperate. Not because there's nothing interesting to look at with birds at the moment — there's always something interesting to look at with birds (like the 1cy Dunnock I caught in my garden the other day that was moulting its tertials and inner most great covert or, er, the two Ruddy Shelducks I saw when I called in at Frodsham briefly on Thursday) — but, bar Frodsham, a variety of things have kept me indoors over the last week.

I don't own a moth trap. I do, however, own a porch light; a sort of poor man's moth trap. It attracts in low numbers and low variety but that suits me just fine. The commonest moth around out porch light is Marbled Beauty.

I think these moths are really smart. This morning there were about eight of them resting on the wall around the light. Even in this small sample, there was a lot of individual variation:

This micro moth was also hanging out on the brickwork.

It's the first time I've used the new Micro moths book in anger. I came to the conclusion that this critter is a Bryotropha affinis.

I got as far as Crambus sp. with this one before it was chucked out of the bathroom window.

Another (different) Crambus and a Willow Beauty were also around the lights, but they scarpered before I could pot/snap them.

So ends my annual moth blog post.