Help needed from Arachnophiles.

It's funny what you find when you're sitting in the smallest room in the house!

This rather splendid arachnid, has been dwelling in our downstairs wash room for a while. It's about 6cm across and when mildly disturbed has a very unusual habit of vibrating backwards and forwards on its web.

I decided to take some pictures and try to identify if in the Collins Guide to Spiders etc. So for I haven't had any luck, so if you're an expert let me know. A close up shows the three tone knees rather nicely.

I've only caught a few Kent Black Arches, the last one was almost exactly a year ago, about the time that Kent won last years 20-20 Cup. So when there was one in the trap this morning I thought that it might just be a good omen for today. They came so close to winning the final, loosing by just three runs with the game in the balance until the last ball. Consequently today's been a bit of a couch potato day with three games to watch.

Too Much Sport

Too many hours watching England's sub-standard efforts in the test match, the championship play off and the Heineken Cup final, meant that once I'd sorted out my moths in the traps I didn't spend long in the garden. With my chauffeur otherwise employed all I managed was a bit of sky watching, not for me the Hen Harrier that Phil Photographed at Bockhill and not "chip chip" of Crossbills flying over. We the forecast set on heavy rain I'll probably not find any tomorrow.

There were a few more moths today. One of my favourite species pairs are "The Spectacle" and the "Dark Spectacle", so named because from the front they look as if they are wearing, well not spectacles, goggles. The picture above is a Dark Spectacle I caught today. Unfortunately I was a bit careless and before I finished photographing it, it did a bunk.

This is a Blue Peter effort, here's on I did before. The reason I put it in is because I think that they are interesting looking, little hairy beasts, with an interesting pattern.

Another group that has emerged this week are representatives of the family Arctiidae (Tigers, Ermines and Footmen). Above is a male Muslin moth, the females are white and unlike nocturnal male fly in the daytime. Presumably they do have a cunning plan to meet so that the species continues!

The next two are both ermines. The Buff Ermine above and the White Ermine below.

Both of these moths have bright yellow abdomen with black spots, this makes them very visible but they may be warning colours because they're unpalatable, I haven't tried.

Footmen are smaller slimmer members of his family and the Orange Footman is one of the smallest and easiest to identify. Some of the others are quite similar to each other but this one is distinct.