Emperor

Wow! I'm just overwhelmed by the response to yesterday's river sunrise. Many thanks to everybody for all the kind comments, stars and favourites. I'm so glad that I made the effort to get up early yesterday - today's been completely different - a dull grey sky with a chilly east wind.

I spent a fair chunk of today at the St. Neot's Camera Club annual exhibition. The local Wildlife Trust had produced a display of photographs taken in the Great Fen, as part of the 2020 Vision project. Two of my photographs were included, and it was a great honour to be amongst so many very good images, taken by both amateurs and professionals. I was very impressed by the photographs of one of the young wildlife photographers - Shabana Shaffick-Richardson - a name to watch out for in the future!

Today's picture is a complete contrast to yesterday's landscape - a studio portrait of a male Emperor moth Saturnia pavonia. This spectacular moth is Britain's only resident member of the silk-moth family. It's reasonably common over much of Britain, occupying moorland and open country.

The males, which have bright orange hind wings, fly during the daytime in search of the greyer females, which fly at night. Both sexes are usually on the wing in April and May. This male was raised in captivity, from eggs laid last spring by a local female, and has emerged a bit early.

A female has also emerged from her cocoon, and she's laid a new batch of eggs, which are hopefully fertile. In due course the caterpillars will be released at the original site. The fully grown caterpillars are also spectacular, being vivid green with black hoops containing yellow wart-like spots. Around Peterborough they mostly feed on bramble.