OFFICE WINDOW WILDLIFE: A buff ermine moth

I am posting this mostly because I am rather proud of the photograph. The buff ermine moth (Spilarctia luteum) is another species that was very common in Woolsery when I was a boy, but now is far less so.


Each year during the summer term I would look for moths on the whitewashed wall of the village shop, where they would be attracted by the street lamps over the night, and rest, ready for the keen young entomologist, when the dawn came.


Sadly, although the village shop and the street lights are still there, the moths no longer cling to the plaster walls....