Nocturnal Romance

A Bromsgrove moth enthusiast found a geometrid larva on foodplant in his garden on 6th May 2014, however he was not quite sure of its identity.  He fed it through to pupation on around the 4th June and then waited to see what emerged. On February the 25th February a vestigial-winged female Dotted Border came out - just reward for his fine work. He informed me that he wanted to let it go in Sanders Park and invited me to attend. At 8.10 pm on the 27th we located a small copse in the park and placed the female on the calm/smooth side of a tree about a metre above the ground. We stood around in the dark, chatting for a few minutes not really expecting much to happen when a light brown 'geo' flew in and buzzed the tree for a few seconds. The sudden torchlight appeared to spook it and it flew off about 10 metres and vanished. We extinguished the light and waited another 10 minutes and were about to leave when I noticed a fine male Dotted Border already in cop with the female. He had obviously sneaked in and on when were distracted by conversations about Scottish moths. This was a fantastic end to the Dotted Border adventure.
Steve Whitehouse

Dotted Border larva

 

Dotted Border female

Dotted Border pair in cop