Mellow Yellow

Moths. Always intriguing – both for scientists, who know little about their ways, even today, and in popular culture with everyone from Gandalf to Hannibal Lector associated with them. Ever since starting to trap and record them aged ten, I’ve been interested in their beauty but also in their darker qualities which their butterfly cousins lack. They are similar to bats- nocturnal, shy, mysterious-but unlike bats they haven't been reduced to cartoon caricartures. Their markings are less showy and often intricate and subtle. And they are endlessly varied.

            Shropshire is great place to see moths with its range of habitats from the chalky grassland of Wenlock Edge, to the moorland of the Long Mynd and the reed beds of the Severn, but late winter is not the best time to see them on the wing. And yet yesterday, rummaging in the shed, I came across a Large Yellow Underwing, slumbering its way through the winter. It is a big, dull, brown moth, and you may never notice it’s there. But at the first warming rays of spring it flips up its forewing to reveal a hindwing filled with bright yellow, a flash that brings to mind the petal of the daffodil, a Brimstone’s wings or the gentle warmth of a spring day. I left him to sleep, knowing that soon the first spring sunshine will coax his great wings back into life and reveal his secret beauty.