After the heat came the rain and everything sighed, expanded, fluffed out a feather and a flower and grew exponentially!
The sun had turned everything to sugar and we picked masses of raspberries, sticky red currents and black currents as perfect as jewels.
I was drying a tray of rain washed berries before freezing them for the winter, when I opened my moth trap and found another new species for the life list. This extravagant creature is a scarlet tiger and she sat momentarily on my hand above the fruit.
There are so many new creatures to be found in every patch and scrap of world. I listened to a wonderful radio show on the almost indestructible tardigrade , that lives in moss and volcanoes and between the plates of barnacle shells.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08vy0yb
I had never heard of them, but now I regard the rain plumped moss of my path with renewed respect, knowing that it is home to such an extraordinary expression of life.
She is beautiful.
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Better looking than the tardigrade!
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Fascinating, and thanks for the link. xx
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Beautiful moth! I’ve looked but I don’t see any images of your moth trap itself here. What kind is it? Tardigrades are really amazing. I’ve occasionally tried to find one in my moss samples but haven’t had any luck yet.
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It is from Watkins and Doncaster. It is just a UV light with vanes around it that funnels the moths into a box. The moths rest on old egg boxes until the morning when I open the trap, gently lift them out, identify them and then let them fly away. It’s very peaceful!
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