May moths

I don't think I am cut out to be a moth trapper.  Not diligent or organised enough.  I set the trap on the last day of May, so a month ago, and it has taken me until now to sort out (some of) the results.  It was all a bit overwhelming with over 100 moths of dozens of species.  All I could do was to photograph them, or at least the ones that didn't fly off, and I did recognise some as I went through them.  Since then there has been so much else going on that I have only just got round to looking through the photos.  As ever, I found the medium-sized greyish-brown ones quite tricky but this time I got a lot of help from the Obsidentify app which appears to be very accurate and is certainly very confident.

There were several real beauties in the box and some I hadn't seen before so here are a few of the best.

First a Poplar Kitten, new to me.

Also Swallow Prominent,

Pebble Prominent,

Iron Prominent,

Gold Spot,

White Ermine,

Green Silver-lines,

Elephant Hawk-moth, there were two of these,

Poplar Hawk-moth, four of these,

Blood-vein, another two,

and Peppered Moth.

There were also four Orange Ladybirds, the ladybird most commonly attracted to light,

and a couple of ichneumons, probably Ophion sp.

After all that I shall set the trap again tonight and try to be a bit more organised.  Results to follow, I hope.