Lovely Lepidoptera, day and night

The Warm sunny weather doesn't seem especially good for bird sightings over the last few days, with migrants having little  reason to stop off on their venture north. So save for the increase of Chiffchaffs on my patch from 1 to 6 over the weekend my eye's were peeled for the Butterflies coaxed out by the sun , and my moth trap reloaded of an evening.

On my patch, I have observed around 10 Small Tortoiseshells, half a dozen Peacocks and 2 Commas, the later being especially pleasing. No Brimstones though, something I'm now very keen to connect with.

Comma

During a visit to a local wood over the weekend in the hope of finding a Brimstone, I spotted what I initially thought was  a Small Copper on the wing ..but was unable at first to get good views as the damn thing was so flighty and barely settled for more than a couple of seconds. Eventually I got a look in my bins and realised it was a lovely day flying moth.

I took quite a while to gather the details of the moth, with short glimpses but eventually after a good hours stalking I had both views and had fired off a few snaps, but conditions were tricky having to do this on full zoom so as not to spook it. On returning home I identified the fella as an Orange Underwing. This moth has a relatively short flying season and prefers the tree canopy so I was very pleased to have seen, ID'd and captured a record shot. I was also intrigued by what appeared to be a slightly smaller variant, and wandered if this could be the much rarer Lighter Orange Underwing, so have sent what I have to the Local moth recorder, worth asking the experts.



Orange Underwing Moth

 On the moth trap front, progress has been steady , with two very nice moths captured over the weekend. Firstly I had an Early Grey, and then a Hebrew Character. These moths really are lovely looking things and I love the names of some of these fellas !

Early Grey

Hebrew Character