A Feathered Thorn appeared at the window this evening, perhaps wanting to watch My Name is Earl with us. It soon lost interest in Mr Hickey's complicated affairs so Luke tried to explain Facebook to it. It seemed keen but clearly had no demonstrable keyboard or mouse skills. However, as this photo shows it was quite at home with looking up its relatives using more old school methods, as long as we turned the pages carefully.
This species gets its name from the male's prominent feathery antennae which you can see in the picture, swept back on this individual as if in a breeze. It is a quite common and widespread moth over much of England and Wales, less so in Scotland, and frequents woodland, hedges and gardens. Adults take to the wing later in the year than their relatives and are active in the autumn and early winter. They're not alone in occupying such a late niche, sharing the moth airways as they do with, for instance, the quite logically named November Moths and December Moths. Their eggs overwinter before hatching in the spring. The caterpillars have a pretty broad-minded approach in terms of their diet and have been found munching on a range of common trees. You can see this moth flying into December, especially in these unseasonably mild times I would think, though in this wind I reckon they'll be flying right into the next county and beyond right now if they don't hold on tight. A bad antenna day, you might say.