Another Buff.

In front of my window I can see the little rain gauge that Pam bought to keep me amused. I emptied it this morning (4mm in the previous 24hrs). It looks to be about 11 mm at the moment (9 p.m.), so it's been a wet day, and it's extended up to Birmingham, meaning that the Kent v Warks 20-20 game is postponed until tomorrow.


I ought to dedicate this bit to Steve Gale at North Downs and Beyond. The other day he reminded, me on his blog, what a fantastic creature the Buff Arches moth is.

He also reminded me how difficult it is to do it justice in a photograph. So I tried from various angles and did my best to get a good depth of focus.

Fronm the from it seems to have a piggy sort of face!

I think that the zig-zag patterning on the side would have interested William Morris (no relation) in his Arts and Crafts movement and wallpaper designs.

While I was playing about I took a closer look at a couple of common moths that are regular at the moment (when I run the traps which having looked at the forecast I'm not doing tonight!).
The one above is called a "Flame Shoulder". They seem to get worn very quickly and are often only identified by a mere outline of their pattern.

This one look like a piece of broken twig and is called the "Flame". While many of the moth names seem descriptive I think that this one is a bit off the mark.

Every time I see a Kestrel Hovering I feel a huge temptation to photograph it, in the hope that I get a better picture that the last time I tried. And like Oscar Wilde said "I can resist everything except temptation".

This one was by one of the new round-a-bouts, on the new back road from the industrial estate at Whitfield to the A2. It was hovering so close to the road that I had to stop and watch and of course get the camera out.

The thing I find most difficult is getting the exposure right, so that I don't have to expect photoshop to do too many miracles. It hunted along this stretch for some time but in the end gave up without catch what ever was attracting it.

(I've featured Buff Tip and Buff Ermine before, hence the odd heading).