Tiger in the kitchen

I normally just ignore craneflies but this one caught my eye as it was a bit of a looker with those stripes. Turns out it's a Tiger Cranefly Nephrotoma flavescens.

Not one I've knowingly seen before. Apparently adults take nectar and pollen from flowers. Their larvae look pretty much like all other Tipula leather-jacket grubs.

Striped tights

When I was about 17, I had a real crush on a girl that I used to see periodically at Spiders Night club in Hull. Her signature attire was a pair of black and white hooped tights that she wore with para boots and some stressed and ripped tops.

It was one of those longings from afar and I never even knew her name, let alone made any type of connection with her.

In fact I hadn't even thought about her for 20 years until one of these beauties rocked up in the trap last year with its stripey legs. I've had another couple this week and they made me cast my mind back to what it was like being a hormonal teenager with love lust on his mind.

An unplanned longhorn

All the best things are unexpected, especially longhorns. While visiting friends in Norfolk I was looking at flower heads for hoverflies and came across this longhorn beetle. I knew it was one I hadn't seen before (mainly because I've seen very few!). Took a few of pics of it feeding before it flew off onto my friend's t-shirt. Looks like it is Stictoleptura rubra, sometimes known as Red Longhorn Beetle.

A rather pleasing unexpected tick.

Look at the palps on that....

A female Schoenobius gigantella, Giant Water Veneer. Second record for the garden

The migrants are coming...

...well, I've had one!

My inland Cambridgeshire garden trap finally got in on the action with a Small Mottled Willow this week. A lifer for me too.

Also new for the garden was this Rhodophaea formosa, the larvae of which feed on hedgerow elms. It's also rather a looker!

Get them when they're young

Sunday morning saw eight Privet Hawkmoths in the trap plus two getting jiggy with it on the kids' climbing frame. A record number for me.

They're one of those species that when you show people, they just can't quite believe that these moths cruise gardens in the local area when everyone is asleep. Plus they are massive, which amazes most people.

My youngest son really enjoys the early morning 'reveal' where we turn the egg boxes over to see what the the great god of mothing has brought us. So much so that he decided to have a go at the meme of hawkmoth on noses that people post on social media.

He may go off nature as he gets older but I suspect the memory of a bloody big moth crawling around on his face will stay with him for a long time. He thought it was awesome!

Got the hump

Had a couple of these Burnished Brass in last night's trap and so had them out for a photograph. One of my favourite moths, mainly because I caught them on my first ever moth trapping session back in 1985 on the Isle of Arran. Plus it's the only species I can remember apart from an Old Lady which I think was an island first at the time.

Many species of moth - both macro and micro - have these humps. I've no idea what their function is but I'd love to know. So if anyone out there can elucidate or has any cunning ideas......