There's an ELephant in my garden!

It is a sad truth that very few people know that moths are every bit as beautiful as butterflies. While butterflies get lots of good publicity on wildlife programmes moths seldom get a mention, but they surely deserve to be recognised both for their beauty and for the fact that they are a very good indicator of the health of our environment.

Small Elephant Hawk-moth

One of my personal favourites is the smallest of our hawk-moths the exquisite Small Elephant Hawk-moth. This moring revealed the first one of the year in one of my traps.

Green Carpet

Another moth that was the first of the year this morning was this Green Carpet. I'm afraid that a photo just doesn't do it justice, but when fresh (newly emerged) as this one is they are a striking colour. Unfortunately it does fade rather quickly.

Foxglove Pug

One of the groups that I do have trouble with are the pugs. They are all small moths, about 2 cm wingspan, and with more than 40 species some groups are quite difficult. This Foxglove Pug is one of the more distinctive one with only the similarly patterned Toadflax Pug to separate it from.