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Sunday, 31 August 2014

Frosted Orange

I've commented before on the sometimes very appropriate and sometimes downright weird vernacular names given mainly by the Victorians to our moths. One I caught last night definitely belongs to the former category, even if it does nowadays sound rather like a delicious sweet! The Frosted Orange moth may not be a sweet but its name is a fitting description of this very attractive little insect. This is only the sixth record for the vice-county (Islay, Jura, Colonsay) and the fourth for Islay. The first two were trapped on the RSPB Loch Gruinart reserve in September 2010, then one was caught on Colonsay in August 2011, followed by another there in August 2013. In the same month, David Wood trapped one on the RSPB's The Oa reserve here on Islay.
Malcolm