Last Night's Moths

Last night my son, John, and I enjoyed a bit of star-gazing on the Alum Bay Road away from the lights. I'm new at this so my breath was taken away when I saw The Pleides or Seven Sisters...and then I managed to find the (literally) stellar Coma Cluster....what have I been missing all these years! Afterwards we drove home through the country lanes. No Badgers or Foxes, but we did come across a stonkingly huge Brown Rat!!

While we were out, the moth trap was on and I looked forward to this morning's results:

The Early Thorn with its butterfly-like pose, unusual amongst moths. Notice the feathery antenna of this male. I came across a pretty amazing electron micrograph of an Early Thorn's antenna here. All prepared for the vital job of picking up those female pheromones!

And what looks like a freshly-emerged Angle Shades moth,which looks like it would be pretty well camouflaged amongst fallen leaves!

Other moths:
Clouded Drab - 1.
Twin-spot Quaker - 1.
Small Quaker - 1.
Common Quaker - 1.
Hebrew Character - 3.
Early Grey - 1.