From the Studio...

The moth list hit 140 today. Many keen moth-ers have garden lists running into several hundreds, so I've barely scratched the surface yet. Even so, that's 140 [mostly] new names to learn, plus the ability to match them to actual moths. Boy, it's hard. Especially tricky are the scientific names which come with most micro-moths. I don't know when I last needed to learn so much new stuff so quickly.

Photography has helped, especially with the micros. By taking photos, then labelling them, I am hoping the process of simple repetition will make some of it stick. This has presented new challenges though. While it's easy enough to photograph a Privet Hawk-moth 60mm long, some of the micros have been 5mm or less - 3.5mm is the smallest so far - and those tiny ones are very difficult to capture well with the P900. But it has been fun trying...

Phyllocnistis saligna (Willow Bent-wing) makes an appearance in my state-of-the-art macro-photography studio, complete with some old bloke's knackered-looking thumb.

Getting the lighting right has been the most challenging aspect really. A soft light, yet bright enough to let the camera operate on a setting that will give minimal pixellation, is what I'm after, but too often I get more contrast than I want. Slowly improving though, I think. A few favourites from the last couple of days...

Shades of grey. Sycamore (left) with a Dark or Grey Dagger. The latter are [externally] inseperable as adults, though their caterpillars are chalk and cheese.

Sexually dimorphic, so I know that this is a female. If all my photos of 8mm moths came out this well, I would be very pleased indeed.

The ID of this 6mm moth is probably a bit sketchy, as there are look-alikes. However, I have plumped for the commonest probable.

A new pug this morning. Woo-hoo! It made me very happy.

This is our third Small Elephant Hawk-moth, and a bit less than pristine. Not sure why I didn't photograph the first two, because they are absolutely gorgeous.

One of the millions of 'bird poo' moths.

As far as I can tell, the miniscule speck in the first photo is probably the scarcest of this lot, and may even be a first for Bridport. Certainly it is the least recorded anyway. And I'm not surprised. Even those with eyesight sharp enough to see the thing would be hard-pressed to recognise the flicking, silvery speck as an actual moth...

Those scattered 'hairs' are from a previous shaggy occupant of this pot, in other words a normal-sized moth.

Somewhere in those photos above (Coleophora lutipennella) I allude to my occasional 'less than certain' identifications. I have learned very quickly that moth ID is frequently art as much as science. Sure, you can dissect the things and examine their reproductive organs...but I have no intention of wandering that far down the Dark Path. Which means I have to rely on what is externally visible and do the best I can. This is fun, and a near-future post will be entitled 'Moth ID - First Impressions', or something similar. And it is definitely better than gulls.

Or worse.