26 October, 2011

Je ne parle pas français

... but I do know a Merveille du Jour when I see one.


Few others can match this species for looks. I've caught one before in the garden; around about this time last year, but that still hadn't prepared me for the shear sublime nature of its plumage when I caught this moth last night.

Possibly one of the best things to come from France since Stella Artois...


What with the moth trap not likely to go out on too many more occasions this year as we head further and further into the autumn, and with nothing to do this afternoon (except for 2 Biology dissertations and a Sociology write-up which can wait until the night before their due in), I decided to do what any bored teenager does and put the data from this year's moth trapping to good use, to find out how this year faired in terms of species diversity of the moths in my garden...


The small dip in numbers in March is due to the fact that I only trapped 4 times that month, and the complete failure of a month in June has probably got something to do with the completely s@!t start to summer we experienced in terms of weather. This is only my second year of trapping, so I can't exactly compare these records to previous years. However, the general consesus is that its been a pretty crap year for moths, with many commoner species simply not appearing.

Now, what to do tomorrow? There's a Shorelark just down the road, but that would mean getting out on my bike and experiencing what they call exercise, so I probably won't do that.

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