Day Flying Moths

&

Wildlife Gardening Tips

Day-flyers are dazzlers! If you think that moths are dull white and brownish creatures melting into the night, or eating holes in woollen clothes, and furnishings, think again... There are two main species of clothes moths, yes... but there are about 2,400 others which are not! And their variety of colours and shapes and sizes is staggering. Take the Six-spot Burnet moth for example –


It flaunts brilliant red spots against an iridescent black background which glint to a greenish shine – an artefact of shifting sunlight as the animal moves. The forewings have 6 red spots (which in some individuals occasionally fuse to make bigger, fewer spots) When it opens its wings, the red hind wings make an unexpected dazzling red flash. (Rarely, the red of the 6-Spot Burnets can be replaced by yellow.)

But this moth’s dazzling contrast colours are not there for medieval-style human admiration, but are a warning... Red against black, like a wasp’s yellow against black are colours to warn off predators. This moth is toxic! Moth predators? Birds, bats – more on those in a later post.


The place to see these moths, often in abundance, is in the meadow of the John Presland Murhill NR 


on a Pyramidal Orchid. There are plenty of their food plants in that wonderful habitat – Bird’s-foot Trefoil 

  for their caterpillars and for the adult moths - nectar of Knapweed (feeding Marbled White butterfly

 

 and thistles. Bob Drower has taken some fabulous photos of some of the other dazzling moths (night flyers) to be found on our Nature Reserve – Mint moth

, Ermine moth

 showing the curled proboscis which extends to sup the nectar of tubular flowers), and one dubbed as the ‘Golden’ moth

which couldn’t be accurately ID’d from the photo.

Wildlife Gardening Tips: Knapweed is popular with many insects (4). It is easy to grow in a garden mini-meadow – this plant (5) in my garden has flourished for many years, bought from a nursery. But frustratingly, I am having difficulty getting Bird’s-foot Trefoil to reseed and establish. The plants in photo 3 were thriving in a mini-meadow created in a Winsley garden.

The Six-spot Burnet moth caterpillar absorbs toxins from this pretty, yellow-flowered food plant (3), hence the flashy red and black predator deterrent. It crawls up a grass stem to pupate and transform in a whitish cocoon, which is a bit like a vertical sleeping bag. Finally, the vivid adult emerges. If you are lucky (like my Wildlife Watch children’s group many years ago), you might even see them crawl out of the cocoons, pause a while and spread their wings... an unforgettable sight, particularly for the young... or the young at heart!


Photo credits: Bob Drower 1, 2, 6, 7, 8; others Nicolette Scourse





















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