Poplar hawk moth

Alex went off to college loaded down with eight assignments, including an A2 poster. Being a kind mother I took him down to Huntingdon to catch the college coach, even though this meant driving down the A1 in heavy rain. However the rain cleared relatively early and the rest of the day was not bad by the standards of this year.

Pete had put the moth trap on last night, and we caught the first poplar hawk of the year, almost a month later than normal. The weather is doing very strange things to the sequence of emergence. Spring moths such as this are coming out at the same time as moths like the large yellow underwing which normally come out in high summer .

Much of the rest of the day was spent sorting bits and pieces out for Chris's trip to Sweden and taking him for a dental check-up. In the late afternoon we managed to make time to take the dogs along the river, which was distinctly swollen after the heavy rain, and smelt decidedly odd. We later found out that there had been a chemical spill which had killed a lot of fish. Luckily the dogs hadn't gone in the river - perhaps because they could sense it wasn't safe.

In the evening we went off to the cinema to see Prometheus, as a belated Father's Day treat. Unfortunately I'd misread the times, and when we turned up we found it was a 3D viewing. None of the boys like 3D so we went off to a nearby pub instead and sat out in the twilight, laughing and chatting. It felt almost summery for a while, and we even saw a bat hunting round the trees. However, a damp chill soon developed and the mosquitoes came out in force so we decided to retreat back home!