Beacon Wood moths

Beacon Wood Country Park, 23 July 2013.

Once it was a quarry, now it's a country park.  The dappled shade of Beacon Wood is delightfully cool on a hot summer day.  I was there with a group of botanists, but because I have been looking at so many moths in recent months, my eye was caught by a couple of colourful specimens.

Large Emerald, Geometra papilionaria. Beacon Wood Country Park, 19 July 2013.

This one was on a tree trunk, close to the ground.  The botanists were ahead of me and had not spotted it.  To them, it looked like a green leaf among so many others — this isn't a conjecture, one of them told me so.  To me, it was moth-shaped.  And it wasn't easily scared off, so I was able to manoeuvre round it and take this shot from an interesting angle.

Oncocera semirubella.  Beacon Wood Country Park, 19 July 2013.

This one is actually much smaller.maybe 2 cm long.  I spotted it on a matching bramble stem.  It belongs to chalk country, and its caterpillars eat Bird's-foot Trefoil and White Clover, both available here.  The Large Emerald's caterpillars eat Birch, and this site is full of Silver Birch trees.

Both these species were new to me, so I was pleased to add them to my photo library!

Beacon Wood Country Park, 23 July 2013.

The moths were taken with my EOS 6D, and the scenes with my iPhone 5.