Sun 02/07/17

We were back to the lavender and poppies today, and the boy managed to catch an electric blue damselfly in his hand. It wasn’t a totally accurate catch though, and he trapped it between his fingers and thought he’d done it some serious damage. It seemed OK when he let it go though, as in the middle photo. In the final shot it is recovering on my hand.

My wife turned up one of these moths in the conservatory yesterday, and today I disturbed one in the garden. It’s remarkably large; with a wingspan of something like 3 ½ inches, or 8 or 9 cm in modern parlance. The markings are quite bold, but like a male hedge sparrow, it just brown and back all over, underwings included. This is the old lady moth Mormo maura.