Here's a moth I found in the house four days ago. Author's note ... although this is about a moth, it will, of course, be relevant to the toil and struggle all us birders strive to overcome every day. "Author !" ... I like the sound of that. Moving on ... Oo ! , I thought, that's very distinctive, I'll have no problem finding out what it is, so I'll just take a quick photo of it and let it go ... so I did. But, but .... I still don't know what it is. I've scoured all the plates in "Skinner", the moth-person's bible, but I can't find it. I'm irked. I was a twit ... an overconfident, jumped-up twerp. The only moth it looked even remotely like was " The Streamer", but that is over and done with by the beginning of May, so it's not really in the frame. Grrrr. And it wasn't a close enough match anyway. I bet if the moth was watching my crappy attempts to work out what it was, it would be thinking to itself ... " ... that's not my name !!" That's Skinner up there ... and it's full of lovely plates like those down there .... Surely I've missed something somewhere .... in my time, such as it is, I've i/d-ed thousands of moths, I must have spent hundreds of hours poring over those plates . I said I was irked ..and I am. But in the whole scheme of things, it's not actually important. Unless, of course, it turns out to be some African contraption full of Ebola viruses and we'll all be lying on the floor bleeding to death in a month's time. Oh well .... that's how it goes sometimes. As that bloke said in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when he was told that the Earth was about to be destroyed by an alien spacecraft ..... "lucky escape for Arsenal". BUT .... that's what I wrote last night ! And after I wrote it, I thought .... just a minute .... I have " missed something" ...maybe it's a Pyralid.... I've got a book about them.... what a surprise ... and I dug it out ... and found this ... woo ! That is a Pyralid ... the Meal Moth, Pyralis farinalis. Here's the facts. We like facts. Meal Moth Pyralis farinalis(Linnaeus, 1758) Wingspan 18-30 mm. The larvae of this colourful moth feed on stored grain, and the species is found mainly in barns, warehouses, and other grainstores. The adults, which fly from June to August, rest characteristically with the tip of the abdomen curved up at right-angles to the body. It is widespread throughout Britain, but not commonly found outside its chosen habitat. ... so, it fits... the only thing that's not quite right is this thing about the upturned abdomen, which my specimen didn't have. But come on ... that's what it is. So ... suddenly I felt right again ... no longer that overconfident twit/twerp, no Ebola disaster, and also, of course, no Lucky Escape For Arsenal. Is there a lesson to be learned from all this ? Never give up? Keep right on till the end of the road ? Leave no stone unturned ? You have to fail 100 times to succeed once ? Probably not. This might be an appropriate song .... The Ting Tings ... "That's not my name" ... a spirited rendition ... Obviously, you're going to want to sing along ...so here's your big chance ...
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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