Friday 6 August 2010

Silver Ys feeding

I've got a lavender hedge growing next to my conservatory, which comes very handy to do a daily bumblebee count. Tonight, while inside, I noticed a few silver Y moths feeding on the lavender and everlasting pea flowers which grow amongst the lavender. I went outside and more moths were feeding on the buddleias. As migratory moths, taking advantage of warm winters in high latitudes, silver Y numbers fluctuate a lot from year to year. This has been a warm summer and there are many of them around. When not resting, these moths are a flurry of activity, almost never stopping on the flower, and constantly vibrating their wings. Without using a flash, they are often a blurr, with it, they look like they are frozen in space. I had no choice but to use a flash, as it was too cloudy and dark, and the photos were taken trough glass. So here are my first night photos of the silver Y.
 Inserting its large proboscis on a lavender flower.
Caught in flight between flowers. This is a migrating species, found mainly from July to September.
Atop a lavender spike.
Several were feeding on the buddleia high up.
A silver Y resting next to the tomatoes earlier in the day.

2 comments:

Antje said...

Someone once told me he thought these were the ugliest butterflies ever. Can't really argue with that, but they still make me smile. ;-)

Africa Gomez said...

I find them fascinating, and I should write a blog about their bat evasion abilities. They are really tricky to get close too when I am outside, they notice me and fly away. My being inside and shooting through glass really helped.