Sallow kitten

A very warm and humid day. The moth trap was quite busy, containing a red underwing (the first of the year, which didn't hang around long enough to be photographed) and this somewhat more co-operative sallow kitten Furcula furcula. This furry, rather thick-bodied moth has rather beautifully patterned wings of white with orange and black patterning. It normally sits with its wings closed, but here they are open and vibrating, warming up the muscles to enable it to fly away. I was struck by how well the pattern toned with the lichens which have developed on our ageing garden chair!

As rain was forecast I took the dogs to Ferry Meadows fairly early, though it was still rather like walking through a warm bath. It was a real late summer morning, the golden-brown grasses resounding with the constant chirrup of grasshoppers, and brown hawkers skimming low over them, catching any unwary insects. There were peacock butterflies on the flowers, long-tailed tits in the bushes and I was pleased to see a family of great-crested grebes, one of very few broods of water-bird young that I've seen this year. The three stripy chicks were being fed small fish by a doting parent. Interestingly I saw some other grebes exhibiting courting and territorial behaviour. I wonder whether the failure of all their previous broods is forcing them to try breeding again, though it seems very late to me.

The rest of the day was filled with routine stuff - food shopping (how can teenagers eat and drink so much?), entering data from Chatsworth and sorting out financial matters. While we were in Peterborough there was a cracking thunderstorm, though it doesn't really seem to have cleared the air. I hope it'll be a bit cooler tomorrow as we have fieldwork planned on a large and unshaded site to the east of Peterborough.