MEET MY OLD LADY

Back when I was a boy and used to collect moths, one of the prized items in my collection was the forewing of a moth called Mormo maura - The Old Lady. I read about it in The Observer's Book of Larger British Moths which my long-dead Uncle Tim gave me for my 8th birthday, and I always rather wanted to meet one in the flesh so to speak.

When I first got the book I was a schoolboy in Hong Kong, and despite being surrounded with a dazzling panoply of exotic species I read and re-read the book Uncle Tim had given me, and memorised many of the species.

In 1973 (by which time we were back in England) we went on a family walk to Bucks Mills, and there, on the corner of the last house before the twisty little path down to the beach I found a huge spider's web, and in the web was the front wing of one of these moths.

And until last night, I never saw hide nor hair (OK moths have neither hide nor hair, but you know what I mean) of this species again.

But last night, to paraphrase Sir Paul McC an old lady came in through the bathroom window.



My days of moth collecting except in pictures are long gone, so I called Corinna, we both photographed the venerable she-moth and I released her out into the night.





It is nice when - a week before one's 52nd birthday - one gets to realise a lifelong ambition, albeit a minor one.






Thanks Uncle Tim.
































http://www.ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?bf=2300

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