More cool cats

A couple of great looking caterpillars that I am rearing through.  I particularly love the 'face' on the Mullein cat...

Mullein

Mullein

Drinker

Latest newcomer

In what has been a pretty good week, with the year list striding on I also managed to bag an addition to the garden list in the shape of Buttoned Snout. Not one that was high on the list of potential additions but then that's part of the beauty of the mothing game...



In a strange coincidence then found another of these a day later, sadly this one had expired in a spider's web in one of the hides at Stodmarsh NNR, East Kent.

Sphinx and the Goodwing

The garden, both at the  trap and in the daytime, is sort of ticking over, with numbers still low, but species variety slowly increasing.

These two are from the weekend and illustrate beauty at both ends of the size spectrum

Alabonia geoffrella netted flying around Hawthorn


Privet Hawk-moth in the 125W MV trap

The Disturbing Stats of May

Firstly apologies to H.E.Bates for ripping-off the title of his book, but if only we had had the Darling Buds of May then perhaps we would not have such a sorry tale to tell of the garden moths in May 2013.

In common with almost everyone out there I too have suffered a dearth of moths in the garden and have looked back over the last five years to see just how bad things have been.  The stats below show the species and individual totals for the month of May in my back garden, but note that this includes all stages (adults, larvae, cases etc):

2009 - 98 spp, 650 individuals
2010 - 74 spp, 810 individuals
2011 - 137 spp, 1940 individuals
2012 - 89 spp, 685 individuals
2013 - 58 spp, 253 individuals

To lift the mood. A few images to catch up on some of those that did show in May...