Feathered thorn

My trip to Oxfordshire went smoothly, but there wasn't a lot to photograph. In fact, for most of the morning, the light was so dim, and the woodland canopy so dense, that I was struggling to make out what was growing on the woodland floor! The sun finally came out while I was in the car on the way home - with nowhere to stop. The roadside trees were certainly looking stunning, particularly the cherries and field maples, which were a riot of red, orange and yellow.

So my chosen blip is another moth, a feathered thorn, which turned up yesterday while we were cutting down hawthorn at Orton Pit. It's wings were deformed, possibly as a result of some disturbance as it emerged from its coccoon, so I brought it home to identify and photograph. It gets its name from the fantastic antennae, which, like many male moths, are finely feathered. The feathering increases the surface area of the antennae significantly, and means that they are more sensitive to female pheromones.

The moth itself is pale brown in colour, but I chose to convert this to monochrome as it shows up the structure of the antennae more clearly. The rest of my family thought the moth looked a bit like a gremlin - so quite suitable for the run-up to Halloween!