Into The Dark

Garden Grass-Veneer, Chrysoteuchia culmella. Nikon D5200 Tokina 100mm f22 1/250 ISO 100 

While watching TV on a warm summer evening I like to leave the curtains open so I can watch the bats swooping outside. Not very fuel efficient bats – some need to eat their own body weight in insects each night. That’s a heck of a lot of midges, rather fewer large moths. So recently I took the plunge and built myself a light trap (investing a whole £4.95 in a blacklight banknote checker from eBay – works great with a white sheet draped over a garden chair). 
It’s only when you run a light trap in your garden that you realize the thick soup of aerial plankton that’s out there in the dark. Not just moths like the stunning Garden Grass-Veneer, but also lots of things you don’t think about such as water beetles, caddisflies, and this water boatman, Callicorixa praeusta.