When I arrived at my friend Hilary’s house early Saturday morning, to hitch a ride to our monthly fungi foray, she had a wonderful surprise for me. She had put her moth trap out the previous night and had kept the moths for me to have a look at before she released them. (In case you’re wondering, trapping is really the only way to record and monitor the moth population, and it’s done in a way that usually causes no harm to the moths.) Here are some of the beauties I saw …

One of the Crambidae or grass moths, the Garden Grass-veneer (Chrysoteuchia culmella)

I blogged about the White ermine recently – this is its cousin the Buff ermine (Spilosoma lutea).

Heart & Dart (Agrotis exclamationis), named for the heart- and dart-shaped markings on its wings.

Ingrailed clay (Diarsia mendica). Its name is a mystery but its caterpillars live on brambles and bilberries.

Bright-line Brown-eye (Lacanobia oleracea). Don’t you just love the common names of moths?

And, last but certainly not least, this amazing creature, for fairly obvious reasons, is called The Spectacle (Abrostola tripartita).