Things hot up

Amazing how responsive nature is, isn't it? The tiny winged creatures feel the sun on their backs/cases and out they come! I find it all fascinating and mind-boggling how the destiny of the species relies on such basic criteria as weather. It also makes me think about how much climate change is really affecting things, when you realise that man's influence on the natural order of things has only taken a really serious effect for the last couple of hundred years, as opposed to the whole of man's existance over the last 60,000+ years! I can't help but think that the recent weather phenomena that we've experienced has hit populations hard before (probably for millenia) and yet just because we're experiencing it alongside nature, we feel we need to change things.
Droughts, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes - they're all natural disaster events that have happened previously, yes they have a catastrophic aftermath, but it is, after all, nature. I learned of a scheme just today where the effects of a limestone river drying up during the dry season, through the very natural phenomenon of the water finding it's way through the cracks and fissures underground instead of running on the surface like a 'proper river', were being "remedied" by concreting the river bed. Tourism was the reason - it won't look good if the river isn't there! Can you imagine the effects of ensuring the river is flowing all year?

Anyway, I digress due to the lack of sleep from last night because I was SOOO excited by finally seeing moths aplenty! The final tally was 41, which when compared to Sunday's 7 was such a vast improvement I was positively skipping round the garden. It was however interesting to note that 27 of those 41 were micros. Maybe the smaller species tend to respond quicker to the warmer temperatures?

Bee Moth

Waved Umber

Clouded Silver

Common Pug

Light Brown Apple Moth

Esperia sulphurella

Ancylis badiana

Caloptilia syringella

Tinea trinotella

All this frenzied activity puts my moth yearlist up to a much more respectable 56!

Also had this gorgeous new-for-the-year Holly Blue on the Ripley Greenway, near the stream at 6:30pm, enjoying some clayey treats in the sunshine!