Up close and personal: latest news from Moth World

Over the last few months, I have been periodically sharing some of the characters that have been dropping into my moth trap.

It is an excellent way of charting the changing seasons, because different moth species follow their own temporal patterns of emergence. It is nature's calendar, in fluffy nighttime form.

So, back in March, we were in a world of Common Quakers, Hebrew Characters and Early Greys.

By May, I was catching Alder Moths, Nut-tree Tussocks and the first Small Elephant Hawkmoths.

Now in July, the cast has almost completely changed again.

Here's one that can be seen flying strongly around many a garden at dusk - the elegant Swallow-tailed Moth. This was has rather immaculate swallow tails, each with a couple of dark marks at their base - they can get rather battered in the short period of the adult's life.

Or how about this one, the Marbled Green.

There are still a few Small Elephant Hawkmoths turning up, but now alongside their larger cousin, the Elephant Hawkmoth (below), here pumping its wings to build up its temperature ready for flight.

I'm always fascinated to read up on what different moth caterpillars eat, and hence gauge whether these adults might be home-grown in my garden.

So, the Swallow-tailed Moth caterpillars feed on the leaves of broad-leaved trees, including Elder. Marbled Green caterpillars feed on lichens. Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillars feed on Rosebay Willowherb, Great Willowherb and fuchsias. And the caterpillars of the following moth, the Brown China-mark, feed on aquatic plants, underwater!

I can tick all those foodplants on my garden list, so if the adults I caught didn't originate in my garden, then at the very least they have the chance to breeding here in the future. Moths are brilliant at indicating the benefits of creating diverse habitats and growing lots of different plant species in the garden. A wildlife-friendly garden is most definitely a moth-friendly garden.

The added pleasure of then popping out a moth trap once in a while is that it really does allow you to get up close and personal with them.

And sometimes very close indeed, as with this whopper this week, the Privet Hawkmoth. How about that for a handlebar moustache?