Hooray for the micros

I used to be scared of micro-moths because I understood they were mostly little brown jobs and very difficult to identify. This really isn't true. They are not all small, indeed some are larger than many of the so-called 'macro-moths'. Many are brightly coloured and even the brown ones often have wonderful markings if you get up close. Some are tricky to identify and need to be dissected to be sure, but that's true of some macros as well. With the recent excellent guides and web resources the micros are proving to be great fun. Some of them are regular visitors to my trap, like this very smart Ermine - probably Apple Ermine - a member of the wonderfully named Yponomeutidae family.