Wild Hares and Hummingbirds by Stephen Moss

Author:Stephen Moss
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409041672
Publisher: Random House

NEXT MORNING, THE ghost swift has vanished, but the trap is filled with a profusion of his relatives. Opening a moth trap is the bug-hunters’ equivalent of Christmas morning, except that all your presents are trying to escape. The trick is to catch as many of the interesting moths as possible, temporarily incarcerating them in small, plastic containers in order to get a good view; and, if possible, identify them. I am always struck by their sheer variety: from tiny ‘micros’, so small and obscure I don’t even try to give them a name, to huge hawkmoths, the most prized members of this panoply of shape, form and colour.

The evocative names of these moths link us directly with the naturalists who chose them. Take the selection I have before me on this bright June morning: blood vein, mottled beauty, light emerald, white ermine, buff ermine, heart and dart, flame shoulder, common wainscot, poplar grey, angle shades, marbled minor, burnished brass, ruby tiger, riband wave and straw dot.

What wonderful, imaginative, utterly bizarre names. Names bestowed by eccentric Victorian naturalists, who sought out their quarry with net, lamp and chloroform, pinning them to a board, then hiding them away in polished oak cabinets for later generations to open in wonder. Names I now hear on my children’s lips, as they gleefully point out a familiar visitor, or question me about the identity of a new one.

Just like birds, some of these moths are residents, living the whole of their brief lives within the borders of the parish. Others, like the silver Y, are migrants, flying here all the way from Spain each summer. The silver Y is named after the distinctive Y-shaped marking on its wings; also reflected in its scientific name, Autographa gamma.

One of the objects in the trap doesn’t, at first sight, resemble a living creature at all. Just over an inch long, silvery-grey in colour, it looks exactly like the twig of a silver birch; roughly snapped off at one end and neatly cut with a sharp penknife at the other, to reveal clean, bright, yellowish-buff wood.

Then this inanimate object does something dazzling. It opens its wings, revealing that it isn’t a twig at all, but a moth: the buff-tip. The buff-tip is one of the most remarkable creatures I am ever likely to see in my garden. Not because it is rare – there are three in the trap this morning – but because it is the finest example I have ever seen of animal camouflage. The shades and markings exactly mimic a birch twig, even down to the rough silvery film on the surface. When it closes its wings, only two antennae, poking unobtrusively out of the narrow end, reveal that it is alive at all. It makes the chameleon look like a rank amateur.

The other extraordinary moth in this morning’s selection sports one of the loveliest combinations of colour I have ever seen in nature, or indeed anywhere else. About 1½ inches long and 2 inches

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.