Tweetie-pie moth!

Thanks so much for all the lovely comments on yesterday's spider's web - though I'm not sure I should have mentioned autumn, as I seem to have jinxed the weather. Today we've had persistent and sometimes heavy rain - more like October than August. I had to make scones this afternoon, to eat with the home-made raspberry jam, just to cheer us all up!

A very humdrum sort of day. Alex developed tonsillitis last night, so after the routine trip to Sainsbury's I had to go and pick up his prescription. Then the rest of the day was spent entering data (so boring!), with an interlude of a dental check-up for Pete, Ben and me. Luckily none of us had to have anything done - I think I've had my fill of dentists lately!

Thanks to the rain, the dogs and I have been stuck at home. Photography has been limited to a few indoor shots of moths that arrived at our moth trap. I was torn between two portrait views, but in the end went for this Canary-shouldered Thorn, a common moth, but one of my favourites as it has the most vivid fluffy yellow body - in this image it reminded me of tweetie-pie!

One or two people asked how I achieved yesterday's web image. Firstly I was lucky to find an almost perfectly backlit web with raindrops and I angled myself carefully so that the adjacent river formed a dark background. I only took three shots, one of which I deleted as soon as I came home. When processing the RAW image I cropped it to remove the surrounding vegetation and then increased the clarity slightly. Once in Photoshop I cloned out two very small but annoying remaining pieces of vegetation and added a level adjustment layer to darken the background even more, and so increase the contrast. Hope this is of some use!