Juniper carpet

This rather subtly marked little moth arrived on our window late last night, and was placed carefully in a box ready to be photographed this morning. It's a Juniper Carpet Thera juniperata juniperata, one of a suite of insect species that were once scarce, being restricted to native junipers, but which have recently started breeding on garden junipers and possibly other related conifers. It's now considered common through much of southern and central England, and a single garden juniper bush can support populations for many generations. It flies late in the year, from September to early November, and then overwinters as an egg on the foodplant. The larvae are active from mid-July to early-September.

After I'd photographed this (which may well be the last moth of the year) I took the dogs round a local woodland, and then spent the afternoon teaching GCSE chemistry to Ben and one of his home-educated friends. We were studying rate of reaction and the first experiment went surprisingly well and produced some splendid graphs, though the second caused a little more trouble. Two faultless experiments in a single day would be too much to hope for!!