Having been away for June I missed the best of the year here. The last week has produced regular autumn attractions like merveille du jour and the rapidly increasing black rustic. On the 30th the garden trap turned up a delicate and a couple of scarce bordered straw, and two red admirals. As usual I have to be quick in the mornings to rescue anything from around or on the trap. This year the culprit is a young moorhen: yesterday it dismembered a great silver water-beetle, and for one hear-stopping moment I thought it had done for a clifden nonpareil. All that was left was half a forewing, but from the size and general tone of the remaining fragment I think it was just a red underwing.
Concerning the box-tree moth – I haven’t yet caught one here but I’m sure it is on the way. When I was in southern France this year it was abundant – a lovely-looking moth with a beautiful purple/grey form which seems to make up about a fifth of the population. But the poor box bushes we saw in every village were totally destroyed.
We tend not to think of France as a victim of alien depredation but it seems to be suffering more than we are – where I was in the Dordogne the big problem for entomologists is the Asian hornet, Vespa velutina, which is very handsome but much more aggressive and voracious than our own species. I had to get out of the way fast when a couple of them took a close interest in my moth trap. And like the box-tree moth it is on its way here.
Tony H.