Sunday 9 June 2013

The Wish For A Moth

It's being wonderfully hot and we are given a cracking thunderstorm the other morning. Last night I do go to bed with the window a bit open because of the mugginess. Lie there listening to a recorded book for too long... not very sleepy. Suddenly aware of clatterings going on and look up to watch big blurry things (I got no spectacles on) flapping about the ceiling. Leap out of bed because I decide enough is enough. Put on glasses to discover I have... not moths as I had excitedly hoped... but three crane-flies dancing around the room. Takes me some time to find a method of getting them back out the window... during which time another one popped in to join the fun. Must be some mass emergence on the crane-fly front.

All in all I be thoroughly awake after all that dancing round the room at midnight. Seems like I didn't get back to sleep till after 3 a.m.... still disappointed that I do not get an exciting moth.

So....  I be tired this morning and grumpily go around the garden drawing back the mesh from my vegetable patch. (Necessary barrier against wind, rain, insects... maybe snails and slugs... and most importantly.... night-roaming cats who need to .... use the cats' bathroom that is my garden.) I have forgotten the cut-up T-shirt strips that I use to tie the mesh back for the day. I trudge back to the house and back down to the potato patch. And there it is....

... One huge moth. Like a piece of bark hanging on to the frame. He looks fresh and new and very big. I know it is a hawk moth but not sure which. I drag out The Old Man to get a look. He takes some pictures and is fairly impressed....But the reception temperature drops when I work out that it is as an Eyed Hawk Moth.

You see its caterpillars like to eat apple leaves if they can't get their preferred sallows and willows ... and the potato bed is down near the apple trees. It's not good to get between The Old Man and his beloved fruit crops.

Late afternoon now.... and the moth is where we left it... I'm going to have to leave that potato bed unmeshed tonight... Hope the moth decides to fly when it gets dark.


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