When you read the words ‘tiger moth’, you probably think plane, after the flying machines engineered by Geoffrey de Havilland (the first of these was designed with foldable wings, so as to fit into a small space – hence the name moth]. I hadn’t realised until I read up about him that de Havilland designed lots of planes, with variations of the moth name – no surprise then to read he was apparently an enthusiastic lepidopterist.

However, I digress. In this blog, the tiger moths are actually moths not planes, Scarlet tiger moths – in fact, the two Scarlet tigers seen during last week’s perambulations. The Scarlet tiger is the tiger moth I see most often, though it is only one of six tiger moths regularly seen in the UK – the others are Ruby, Wood, Garden, Cream-spot and Jersey tiger.