Hebrew Characters !

With temperatures warming up I couldn't resist dusting off my newly acquired Skinner's moth trap and lighting up the garden in the hope of a moth or two coming my way.

I am relatively new to this game, I made a few attempts at the end of last autumn, catching a few moths, most of which were difficult to identify, but its quite exciting, setting up the garden trap early evening, the anticipation of a trap full of moths in the early morning, the excitement of a new species appearing in the garden.

And then theirs the reality, the empty egg boxes, the egg boxes that the moths are supposed to take up residence in the early morning light.

As you can guess, the moths appear to be avoiding my trap, and last nights catch was no different. A grand total of two moths, both of which were Hebrew Characters, but two are better than none.

Hebrew Characters

 But at least I managed to identify them with some certainty, or have I, there appears to be two very similar looking moths the 'Hebrew Character' and the 'Setaceous Hebrew Character' both fairly common species of the same family which readily come to light.

The Hebrew Character is usally seen flying March to April, so that helps, the Setaceous Hebrew Character is seen in small numbers in May and June, and then more commonly in August and September.

As you would guess this Moth has a mark on its fore wings which resembles the Hebrew character known as 'Nun'

The Setaceous also has a very similar mark on its wing although some references say that there is a slight difference in the shape, time will tell if I can actually differentiate between them when the time comes.

On the plus side these do sit still for longer making it easier to photograph than there day flying cousins, although I am still struggling with 'depth of field' aspect of the photography side of things.

So 2017 is off to a start of sorts, with my first Moth, it can only get better, hopefully.