Saw an interesting moth
 

Anyone here interested in insects? I found a large moth of striking appearance perched on my bedroom window a few days ago. It was triangular in shape, black with yellow oblique stripes, forming a chevron pattern. I couldn't find it in my moth book; tiger moths were the closest but there wasn't a real match.

Today I found another one on the street, trapped in a cobweb. I freed it and was able for the first time to get a good look at the hind wings which were strawberry red with black spots. A very handsome beast.

I just googled it and found it was a Jersey Tiger Moth.

Apparently it used to be a rarity on the mainland but has recently been appearing in South London. I live in North London and I have now seen two in the course of a week.

Very beautiful for a moth.:)

Where did you get your moth book?

It's one of the "Observer" series. I've had it for years.

Update: it is in the book after all. I failed to recognise it because it is shown with wings spread as if pinned on a board. The one I saw earlier had its wings folded and looked quite different.

I've found this to be a useful site for identifying butterflies (I don't think they do moths, though): http://www.gardenswithwings.com/iden...tterflies.html

We had a monarch butterfly emerge from its cocoon on our deck today (we have three milkweed plants for the monarchs): http://pineviewfarm.net/weblog/wp-co...08/cocoon1.jpg

The trouble with a lot of these sites (from my point of view) is that they are oriented towards an American audience. The whole Internet is of course, but it's an especial pain when you want to identify wildlife.

What a coincidence! I saw one in the garden today and though it a rather nice butterfly until it landed on a rose and I saw it was really a moth. Usually I think of large moths as the sort of things that come in open windows at night and make me scream…

Apparently this particular moth usually flies by day. May I ask if you live in north or in south London? None of the sources I have read so far mention sightings north of the Thames.

It was first reported in London in 2010.

Thanks for the link to all the books.

Frankly, I think that is a legitimate gripe.

It's probably because a lot of them are based in the States and the search results are skewed by a bunch of clueless Yanks searching for stuff.

I did a web search for "identify moths uk" and found this at the top of the page: https://ukmoths.org.uk/

Well done hazel.

This reminds me of a time way back in AP Biology class we were told to bring in samples of moths and butterflies. The instructor wanted us to catch them and pin them to a board for display. Well, I had the idea of taking photos of them and then pinning the photos to the board. Was sent to the Dean's office, who agreed with my stance, F was turned into an A and no butterflies or moths were killed in my project. :)

PS: they were Polaroids so I was even able to label the pictures.

Bully for you!

Look at that, hazel's moth is right there on the front page!

Just north — Chiswick. But for a moth that's crossed the Channel, a river is no barrier. On the subject of new species, so you get many parakeets in Harrow?

Yes, loads of them. I exercise my dog in Northwick Park and that's one of their strongholds.