iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 04/08/2026

Listening on repeat to #SaintSaëns sublime "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" in the five versions of it I've amassed. #JessyeNorman nails the tentative initial confession of love which swells into a rapturous declaration, before drifting languorously down to a musical chaise-longue.

Samson asleep in Delilah's lap; she holds a pair of scissors and is looking at a Philistine in the background.

Jan Lievens, 1630, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 27/05/2026

What is #JunkMail coming to? And why?

Email entitled "Ferrars all spirits his imagine effects amongst neither", which reads:-
Boy possible blessing sensible set but margaret interest
Separate entrance welcomed sensible laughing why one moderate shy
So endeavor to continue cheerful doubtful we to

You one delay nor begin our folly abode
Imprudence insensible be literature unsatiable do
Longer ladies valley get esteem use led six
Differed and and felicity steepest mrs age outweigh
Contrasted unreserved as mr particular collecting it everything as indulgence

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 24/05/2026

Absolutely stonkingly wonderful #Beethoven in #Dumfries tonight from @scomusic.bsky.social and #Emelyanychev. Precision, drama, and an effervescent enjoyment in making music that was completely infectious. Come back soon. Bring #Berlioz.

Black & white photo of Maxim Emelyanychev from the SCO website. He's in his 30s, with a lot of floppy hair, and is sitting leaning out at the camera as if he were just about to talk.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 13/05/2026

Wonderful 1911 image from the Public Domain Review, visualising the stratification of the #capitalist system from the "Industrial Worker" (Cleveland, Ohio).

Pyramid showing layers of society. At the top, a money-bag named Capitalism; below that, two prosperous men and a king—"We Rule You". Under them, three prelates—Catholic (I think), Protestant & Orthodox—"We Fool You". Below them, soldiers "We Shoot at You", and underneath a dining tabel with convivial (drunk?) members of high society—"We Eat For You". At the bottom, holding up all the preceding layers, a mass of working men, women & children-"We Feed All".

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 03/05/2026

Good article in The Times on the Scottish elections. I would definitely vote for #JackMcConnel if I were in his constituency—good to get someone looking at collaborative politics. www.facebook.com/profile.php?... www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Image shows Jack McConnel, Labour candidate for Galloway and West Dumfries. He is grinning as he tries to catch his dog and hold on to his leaflets and poster. He is 30s, wearing jeans, checked shirt and spectacles.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 25/04/2026

Um, the site I'm looking at (courtneymilan.com) has this at the foot of each page, but not the version you kindly illustrated. Really sorry if I'm being completely useless here!

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 11/04/2026

You say #splashdown parachutes—I say #Tunnocks #teacakes. Still amazing & awe-inspiring to watch. Isn't international co-operation a wonderful thing?

The moment Artemis II splashed down, with three red and white striped parachutes fully deployed.

A photo of a Tunnock's Tea Cake in its iconic red and white striped wrapper. looking just like the deployment parachutes.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 07/04/2026

I submitted an appeal on 5 December 2025. #HMRC, let's hope I'll be spared long enough to receive your reply.

image is taken from a webchat with HM Revenue & Customs. It reads
"We have received your appeal for your late aunts late filing
penalty. Her case is being dealt with by the bereavement team.
We are unable to deal with your query over webchat. We are
currently processing requests received on 18 June 2025. You can
expect a reply by 9 October 2026."

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 29/03/2026

Perhaps a little out of your period, but Diana Sperling captured her family skating in 1817. There's a lovely book of her paintings—"Mrs Hurst Dancing".

Painting showing well-dressed gentlemen on the ice of a small lake. One of them is pushing a lady on a chair across the ice. Dogs and onlookers on the bank. By Diana Sperling, 1817, from "Mrs Hurst Dancing".

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 17/03/2026

Got #Wordle in 2. Hah! That'll show the WordleBot who's who.

Image shows a comparison of Wordle scores. I guessed the word in two goes; the Wordle bot got it in one.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 08/02/2026

#Wordle people, can anyone explain the bot's reasoning here? 10 words down to 3 *feels* like an OK result.

The image shows a Wordle grid. The last entry is the word ENDED. The Wordle bot has assigned it a Skill score of 0/100 and commented "Although your guess eliminated seven words, I think EMBED was far more likely to be the solution."

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 30/01/2026

Just a suggestion, but don't forget who's making it...

marine flag for the letter K, half yellow, half black, with the meaning "I have something to communicate". The K has been amended to OK

Spoof naval flag, supposedly representing a question mark. The flag is completely grey, and has been given the meaning "But I have just forgotten what it was".

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 17/01/2026

www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/jack-mccon... I'm for anyone who's trying to bring appropriate jobs to the region. (Sorting out our potholes too would be a bonus.)

The image shows a White young man in a tartan shirt and tortoiseshell glasses standing on top of a moorland hill. Behind him stretch the hills of Dumfries and Galloway.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 30/12/2025

15 tiny pots of Arabian Saffron — thank you, Father Christmas.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 23/12/2025

Well done, very old friend. Well done.

Image of a car dashboard. The milometer reads 99,999 miles.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 11/12/2025

#AITA— OP: We're going to elope to Las Vegas next year with 20 friends. Respondents: We're cross about the mis-use of "elopement" & the general degradation of #language. It's a symptom of something. Voice of Common Sense: It *can't* be an elopement if there isn't a ladder. #C18th #C19th

The Elopement of Bessie Surteens and John Scott (later Lord Eldon).
Etching from original painting by Wilson Hepple.
From https://hauntedpalaceblog.com/2024/05/31/rags-to-riches-the-elopement-of-bessie-surtees-and-john-scott-a-newcastle-love-story/

A couple in C18th dress are rushing away from a ladder that leads to a townhouse's first floor (2nd floor for USA) window. In the background a carriage is waiting, presumably to carry the couple to Gretna Green. A man on the left of the picture is gesturing at or to them.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 26/11/2025

This is my favourite illustration from Hugh Thomson's Emma—Mr Knightley "walking away from William Larkins". The polished boots, Wm Larkins' bemusement, the detailing of the pegs on the haystacks and the shading of the trees.

A well dressed early C19th gentleman (Mr Knightley) with his head bent and his hands clasped behind his back is walking away from a farmer on a horse. The farmer (William Larkins) looks after Mr Knightley bemusedly. The picture illustrates this extract from Chapter 15.
" Of their all removing to Donwell, Emma had already had her own passing thoughts. Like him, she had tried the scheme and rejected it; but such an alternative as this had not occurred to her. She was sensible of all the affection it evinced. She felt that, in quitting Donwell, he must be sacrificing a great deal of independence of hours and habits; that in living constantly with her father, and in no house of his own, there would be much, very much, to be borne with. She promised to think of it, and advised him to think of it more; but he was fully convinced, that no reflection could alter his wishes or his opinion on the subject. He had given it, he could assure her, very long and calm consideration; he had been walking away from William Larkins the whole morning, to have his thoughts to himself.
“Ah! there is one difficulty unprovided for,” cried Emma. “I am sure William Larkins will not like it. You must get his consent before you ask mine.”

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 25/11/2025

I shall have to be buried with my e-reader, because if they filled my coffin with all the dead-tree books I love, there would be no room for me. A lot of them are illustrated with the delightful drawings of Charles & Henry Brock, Hugh Thomson, T.H. Robinson. Charming, appropriate & gently mocking.

Title page of Mrs Gaskell's Cranford, illustrated by TH Robinson. Below the title, an elderly C18th gentleman slouches reading in a great armchair, his feet on a footstool in front of the fire.

B&W illustration by Hugh Thomson for Jane Austen's 'Emma'—Chapter 6 "he was ready at the smallest intermission of the pencil, to jump up and see the progress, and be charmed."
Mr Elton looks admiringly at Emma's portrait of Harriet Smith. Emma contemplates her own work admiringly too.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 18/11/2025

"Discover", indeed! The Scottish #accountants' organisation revealing their bias in their newsletter. As if their female members need to discover any of this. More to the point would be a headline that laid out what #ICAS is *doing* about it.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 17/11/2025

Gotta admire #ViennaOpera for putting on #AlbanBerg 's #Wozzeck *every day* from April to October 2026—seven months. This modernist #opera "depicts a soldier's tragic slide into madness and murder amid militarism and oppression". 200+ performances will do that to a chap.

Snapshot of the Vienna Opera's list of events for April 2026 showing Wozzeck scheduled almost every night.

Snapshot of the Vienna Opera's list of events for October2026 showing Wozzeck scheduled every night.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 07/11/2025

This is Sir Gregory Page-Turner. "Come on," he's saying, "come on, bring on de worms."

Painting of Sir Gregory Page-Turner in 1768, by Pompeo Batoni, He is wearing a long red coat, red waistcoat and breeches. In the background is a bust of ?Athene and a ruined /abbey.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompeo_Batoni_-_Sir_Gregory_Page-Turner_-_WGA1508.jpg

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 03/11/2025

The village had a bonfire. And fireworks. And a fire dancer. A piper played the can-can, and we sort of danced, but holding fish & chips and a ginger beer, so more of a muddy shuffle, really.

A night scene with a large well-built bonfire burning away merrily. The flames have not yet reached the stuffed guy on top.

A black night sky with a golden firework bursting into flower in the middle of the picture. Because the phone camera is quite slow, it captures a few nano-seconds of the light, making the firework more substantial than it was in real life.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 30/10/2025

Talking of package tours, at lunch today This chap was telling us about a queer Experience in Tripoli last year. It seems—or was it Tunis?—anyway They took a longish trip inland, and they Were somewhat puzzled when the coach stopped near This massive concrete tower, tier on tier Of crumbling arches.

Illustration by the amazing Chaya Prabhat - https://chaayaprabhat.com/ozymandias - with permission.
The image has a semi-realistic, semi-abstract background in yellows, ambers, oranges of a desert with a huge golden sun. In the foreground, in dark brown, a tilted plinth, with two legs only remaining of a statue above. On the plinth are the first words of Shelley's Ozymandias—
"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. "

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 22/10/2025

Just seen La Sonnambula in a live screening from the #MetOpera. Interesting anti-GOP pre-opera political message from the Met's General Manager #PeterGelb. Singing was stratospherically accomplished (if not especially subtle); standout performance by an appropriately louche Alexander Vinogradov.

Count Rodolfo (Alexander Vinogradov) holds a limp Amina (Nadine Sierra) in Bellini's 'La Sonnambula' from the Metropolitan Opera House. Image is a still from the live screening trailer.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 20/10/2025

"Leave It To Psmith", P.G. Wodehouse.

Cover of the first edition of Leave It to Psmith.

Silhouette of an elegantly dressed woman, wearing a large elaborate hat. It is raining. A man in morning dress, wearing spats, is walking towards her, holding out an umbrella.

Extract from "Leave it To Psmith"—

Psmith considered the point.
‘Within reason – and if undetected – I see no objection to two-pennorth of crime.’
‘Well, look here . . . look here . . . Well, look here,’ said Freddie, ‘will you steal my aunt’s diamond necklace?’
Psmith placed his monocle in his eye and bent gravely toward his companion.
‘Steal your aunt’s necklace?’ he said indulgently.
‘Yes.’
‘You do not think she might consider it a liberty from one to whom she has never been introduced?’

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 18/10/2025

Blazing performance tonight from #NicolaBenedetti and friends. Foyer full of awe-struck audience, many demonstrating the air violin.

Taking a bow after the concert (l-r) — accordionist Samuele Telari, Nicola Benedetti, cellist Su-a Lee & guitarist Plínio Fernandes.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 18/09/2025

I don't often look to #BertrandRussell for comfort, but he laid down that daft claims had to be proved by the claimant, not disproved by the sensible. The assertion that an undetectable #teapot orbits the Sun somewhere between the Earth and Mars should not be accepted, although not proven wrong.

Image is a delft-blue outline of a vaguely tea-pot shaped thing, with "Russell" filling the middle of the image.

From the Wikipedia site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
Image by Conquistador, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36974068, colour changed from black to blue by me.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 16/09/2025

My bro & I are executors of my aunt's many undated #wills, written on used envelopes, with cheery messages: "You'll find it's all very simple, ducks!" I've spent days wrestling with ALL the taxes, we can't find 3 legatees, HMRC wants to interrogate the witnesses, & how I wish she were still here.

B&W photo of my aunt, a tall well-built woman, with short waving iron grey hair, killer glasses and a highly patterned dress. She's standing in front of a brick wall, and holding a pair of maracas, though she could never remember when the photo was taken or why maracas.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 12/09/2025

@bcdreyer.social's 'Dreyer's English' has arrived. I'm in the middle of Chapter 3, beset by dry humour, common sense, and all the advice I didn't know I desperately needed. I'm on the point of asking my editor to send my damned book back, for me to comb out all the tangles from its fur. #AmWriting

Image shows the back-cover of the book, with the following text:

Step 1—The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (Your Prose)
Go a week without writing:
• very
• rather
• really
• quite
• in fact
It's hard, right? But if you can last a week, you will be a considerably better writer than when you started.
Whether you write emails, blogs, books, or more emails, this witty and
enlightening guide to writing is here to help. Written by Benjamin Dreyer,
chief copy editor of the prestigious book publisher Random House and one of Twitter's leading language gurus, your sentences might never
be the same again.*
[Endorsements from authors and newspapers.]
* See page 94 for what's wrong with this sentence.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 07/09/2025

Doctor Strabismus (whom God preserve) of Utrecht.

Spike Milligan, sitting in a great armchair at a crowded desk, wearing a smoking jacket and embroidered fez.
From https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/2025/05/10/sitcoms-of-the-sixties-the-world-of-beachcomber/beachcomber/

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 02/09/2025

I'm waiting for news. I'm calm as a calm thing, waiting for news. I don't know why I dreamt of having ham & blue cheese chocolates thrust at me while unseen people tore apart carefully woven baskets. Symbolism is for wimps. Not calm people.

In a tall panelled room, a young woman in a blue (faintly mediaeval) dress and green fringed shawl looks out of a leaded woman with a patient, slightly apprehensive expression.
William Ladd Taylor, Awaiting his return. Source: Sotheby’s/ Private Collection. https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/best-waiting-paintings/

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 28/08/2025

Took all the loose change from FIL's chairs / sock drawer etc to a CoinStar m/c. List of items *not* to convert incl— acorns, bullets, contact lenses, earthworms, finger nails, French fries, gold fish, miniature dice, mud, nails, pine cone parts, quilt squares, soap. Tho' oddly nothing about tea...

Full list of items—
acorns, alcohol wipes, animal crackers, animal or human teeth, bandages, batteries, beads, bells, belt clips, bent coins, bolts, bottle caps, broken glass, bullets, buttons, candy, candy wrappers, cardboard, cat litter, chains, clay, commemorative coins, confetti, contact lenses, cotton balls, cotton swabs, crayons, cuff links, damaged coins, dirt, dirty coins, dog food, drill bits, ear plugs, earthworms, Eisenhower silver dollars, erasers, feathers, finger nails, flash drives, foam objects, foreign coins, fossils, french fries, fruit snacks, glitter, gold fish, grass, guitar picks, gum , gum wrappers, gummy worms/bears, hair clips, hay, jar lids, jewelry, key chains, keys, lint, marbles, matches, miniature dice, mints, mud, nails, name tags, nuts/bolts, paper clips, pen caps, pencils, pills, pine cone parts, pins, pipe cleaners, Play-Doh, playing cards, POGs, pop can tabs, popsicle sticks, quilt squares, ribbons, rocks, rubber bands, rubber lid seals, sand, screw driver bits, screws, SD cards, seeds, shells, soap, soda, springs, stickers, tape, tie tacks, tire caps, tissues, tokens, tooth picks, tree bark, twigs/sticks, vegetables, wall hooks, washers, watch bands, wheat, wires, yarn

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 21/08/2025

#Historians, help me. A guide @ #ApsleyHouse told me the 400+ piece Prussian dinner service came to London protected in cases of melted & resolidified butter. I've loved & retold this story but an ex-A-Hse curator friend says it ain't so. Any advance on melted butter? #C19 #Wellington #Waterloo

Photograph by Christopher Ison for English Heritage. Gilded porcelain vase with a painting of Wellington leading his troops into battle at Waterloo.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 18/08/2025

A warm still evening, watching the clouds. From time to time, single #crows wing past, black against a blue & gold sky. Each flies firmly east, then turns through 90° to go south. Why? Are they navigating by ground-based landmarks? #Birds

An evening sky with high clouds and below an apple tree's branches reaching upwards.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 18/08/2025

I bring you Ellis Martin, the #OrdnanceSurvey #map cover artist 1919-1940. So successful were his designs that the Ordnance Survey maps out-sold the competition, appealing to the (comparatively) new markets of walkers, cyclists, motorists and tourists. I do like a nice bit of commercial art.

Ordnance Survey one inch Fifth Edition, Ellis Martin, 1933 for Reading & Newbury. Red background, buff foreground; map image shows a young man, with rolled up sleeves & a backpack, sitting at the top of a hill. In the distance can be seen a railway bridge, a town & church spire, distant hills and the sea.

Image from Wikipedia & in the public domain.

Ordnance Survey hiker, 1 inch to 1 mile, 1932, Ellis Martin. Forest of Bowland
Less stylised than the Reading map, the image takes up more of the map cover and is now fully coloured. Country Life wrote of it in 1969 "The picture contains six sensible people; one young hiker, three cyclists and the two locals standing outside a pub. The trippers (from the bus) are kicking it up inside. This cover represents the high art of map selling. It has four targets, walkers, cyclists, motorists and tourists en masse."

Image from Wikipedia & in the public domain.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 13/08/2025

Show me your getaway vehicle.

Still from the film "Flying Down to Rio", showing a bevy of beautiful girls sitting on the wings of an old plane, which is revving up to take off.

Taken from https://pureentertainmentpreservationsociety.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/breening-thursdays-3-flying-down-to-rio-from-1933/

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 07/08/2025

Not sure how seriously to take this, given it hasn't tracked a single "a" so far. I shall follow its future career with a singular interest. #Language #Dictionaries

Screenshot from "The Bluesky Sictionary" site, headed up Words We Haven't Seen. Among the columns of abstruse words nestles the word "a".

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 05/08/2025

Half-past midnight & I'm listening to #CornellMacNeil lamenting over his dying daughter for the 3rd time this evening. #Rigoletto is the greatest #baritone role bar none, & CMacN's rich voice is giving it laldy. There seems no good reason not to play the whole thing all over again, really.

B&W photo of a 1966 production of Rigoletto from the Met Opera.
https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/articles/giant-among-giant/
The jester Rigoletto (Cornell MacNeil), portrayed here as a hunchback, limps in front of the Duke (Alfredo Kraus) & his courtiers, who mock him. At a guess, this is the scene where Rigoletto is devastated that the courtiers have kidnapped his beloved daughter from his house and delivered her to the amoral Duke, that he may have his wicked way with her.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 22/07/2025

Waiting for the Merry Wives of Windsor in South-West Scotland.

An outdoor scene with a stage with a Tudor house front. Behind a large sandstone church.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 19/07/2025

Two autobiographies published in 1959-62. One book I shall read. The other, I won't. #ForensicPathology #Memoirs #Royalty

Cover image is of forensic pathologist Sir Sydney Smith's Autobiography, Mostly Murder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostly_Murder

“The[se three bones] are the bones of a young woman,” I reported. “She was short and slim. Aged between twenty-three and twenty-five when she died, which was at least three months ago. She had probably had at least one pregnancy, perhaps more. Her left leg was shorter than her right, and she walked with a pronounced limp. Probably she had polio when a child. She was killed by a shotgun loaded with home-made slugs, fired in an upward direction from a range of about three yards. The killer was standing, or sitting, in front of her, and slightly to her left. She was not killed outright, but died about seven to ten days later, probably from septic peritonitis due to the shooting.”

Image shows book cover of "Thatched with Gold: the memoirs of Mabell, Countess of Airlie", featuring the countess (then 67) in a black evening dress, with ropes of pearls and a fur trimmed evening cloak on one shoulder. She looks off to the right, her mouth tightly closed, her eyes hooded, and an expression I read as one of disdain.

The portrait is by Philip de László and is in the public domain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabell_Ogilvy,_Countess_of_Airlie

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 05/07/2025

Final #moth of the night, the tiger moth.

Garden Tiger Arctia caja
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Wingspan 45-65 mm.

Another species which was a favourite with early collectors, who selectively bred it to create unusual colours and forms.

Once a quite common moth in most of Britain, it seems to have declined in many places in the last few years.

It flies in July and August, and will regularly visit the light-trap.

The caterpillars are the 'woolly bears' of many people's childhood, and feed on a number of herbaceous plants.

https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/arctia-caja/adult/

Another view of the tiger moth. This one has its black and white dappled wings open, displaying a rich tomato-coloured body with black spots.

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 05/07/2025

More #moths Poplar Hawk moth The Snout True lover's knot

Poplar Hawk-moth Laothoe populi
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Wingspan 65-90 mm.

Probably the commonest of our hawk-moths, it has a strange attitude when at rest, with the hindwings held forward of the forewings, and the abdomen curved upwards at the rear. If disturbed it can flash the hindwings, which have a contrasting rufous patch, normally hidden.

Distributed commonly throughout most of Britain, the adults are on the wing from May to July, when it is a frequent visitor to light.

The larvae feed on poplar (Populus), aspen (P. tremula) and sallow (Salix).

https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/laothoe-populi/adult/

The Snout Hypena proboscidalis
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Wingspan 25-38 mm.

A common species throughout Britain, this moth can often be found in numbers around dusk, flying over patches of the foodplant, nettle (Urtica dioica).

It is on the wing from June to August, and again later in the autumn, and is a common occurrence at the light-trap.

It occurs on waste ground, gardens, woodland and other places where nettle occurs.

https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/hypena-proboscidalis/adult/

True Lover's Knot Lycophotia porphyrea
([Denis & Schiffermüller], 1775)
Wingspan 25-30 mm.

A small but attractive moth, with distinctive chestnut, black and white markings, often with a purplish tinge.

A moorland and heathland species, occurring widely over the whole of Britain, and often the commonest of the Noctuidae in these habitats.

It flies between June and August in a single generation, and is attracted to light.

The well-camouflaged larvae feed on heather (Calluna) and heath (Erica).

https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/lycophotia-porphyrea/adult/

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Sarah Drew @sarah-drew.com · 05/07/2025

We had #Moth Stalkers last night, setting up their light boxes to catch moths before identifying and releasing them this morning. SW Scotland 700ft, damp windy night. Peach blossom moth Drinker moth Great brocade moth (quite rare) Ghost moth (female)

Peach Blossom Thyatira batis
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Wingspan 32-38 mm.

A beautifully-marked moth, with its pinkish blotches against a soft brown background, the Peach Blossom is fairly common in woodland habitats throughout Britain except the extreme north.

The reddish-brown caterpillar feeds on bramble (Rubus) in late summer.

The adults fly at night in June and July, and can be attracted by bright lights or a sugar-mixture.

https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/thyatira-batis/

The Drinker Euthrix potatoria
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Wingspan 45-65 mm.

This species gets its English (and Latin) name from the habits of the caterpillar, which is supposed to have a liking for drops of dew.

The yellowish females are slightly larger than the orange-brown male, but both sexes usually show the two distinctive white spots on the forewing.

Flying at night, in July and August, the males especially are attracted to light.

Grasses and reeds form the bulk of the foodplants, and the species is fairly common in the southern half of Britain.

https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/euthrix-potatoria/male/

Great Brocade Eurois occulta
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Wingspan 50-60 mm.

Although resident in the Scottish Highlands, this species is more often noted as a migrant to the East Coast, especially further north.

The resident populations are quite dark, almost blackish, but the immigrants are usually much paler and greyer.

The resident moths fly in July and August; the immigrants generally appearing later, from late August to September.

Bog myrtle (Myrica gale) is the main foodplant, but other plants and bushes, such as sallow (Salix) and birch (Betula) are also eaten.

https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/eurois-occulta/adult/

Ghost Moth Hepialus humuli
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Wingspan c.50 mm.

A relatively common species over much of Britain, the English name 'Ghost' comes from the white males, which can sometimes be seen at dusk, 'hovering' over grassy areas.

The females are quite different, being yellow, marked with orange. The adults fly during June and July, perhaps into August.

The larvae, similar to other Hepialidae, feed underground on the roots of grasses and low herbaceous plants.

https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/hepialus-humuli/female/

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