Dorset Nightlife

This year I’ve seen scarlet tigers, pink elephants, emeralds, two ghosts and a shark in my garden! It isn’t due to alcoholic excess; I’m actually hooked on moths and their incredible biodiversity. There’s the privet hawkmoth built like a miniature jump-jet only, as a moth, it is pretty sizable filling the length and breadth of a large human palm. Then there’s the equally big contortionist, the poplar hawkmoth that rests with its hind wings in front of its fore wings. The camouflage experts include the bufftip that looks like a bit of peeled off bark, the scorched wing that mimics a dead leaf and the Chinese character rather incongruously named because it looks like a bird dropping. We have also been visited by day flying exhibitionists, the garden and scarlet tigers and the awesome hummingbird hawkmoths that never seem to rest, zipping from flower to flower. In total this year, there have been 111 species trapped in my light-box in just 19 nights, almost double the number of species of butterfly I’ve seen in the UK in a lifetime.