Equinox. Equal night. The date when day length and night length are equal? Actually not quite for us in the UK. It is the point in time when the position of the sun is directly above the celestial equator. This year the autumnal equinox was 0850h on 23rd September, when we in East Lothian were still,pedantically, enjoying slightly longer days than nights. It will be 26th September that we slide over that seasonal boundary and the nights start to become longer than the day.

Whatever its astronomical definition, perhaps equinox marks a seasonal point of change in our psyche. Once it has passed we must surrender to the inevitable – winter is returning. It also seems to signify a change in the contents of moth traps. Now is the time for some of the UK’s loveliest moths, and autumnal mornings are a glorious time to be out enjoying them. Beauties are revealed, scaled in rich browns, greens and yellows, designed to meld with the falling foliage. We can forget about winter for the moment, there is not much hibernal in here.

And so as the autumnal equinox passed, and night had almost but not quite overtaken day in length I set some light traps at Whittingehame to enjoy some of the transition from summer to winter in the moth’s world.

Some moth species stick to one generation (egg-caterpillar-pupa-adult) each year, some have two (egg-caterpillar-pupa-adult- egg-caterpillar-pupa-adult) and others keep their options open – fitting in two generations only if they can. The further north you go, the harder it becomes to manage this and a warm summer certainly helps. We must have had a warm summer this year, because in the traps were fresh-looking Green Carpet, Brimstone and Snout, presumably all having a second generation. These second generation moths are becoming increasingly frequent in the north of the UK as our weather becomes generally milder. A hundred years ago Alice recorded these three species as “common” or even “abundant”, but has no September records for any of them: she records Green Carpet in June and July, Brimstone June-August and Snout in July and August, adding that Snout was “much less common in 1900s than 1800s”.

Left to right: Snout, Brimstone and Green Carpet

Yellow is certainly à la mode for moths at this time of year and sure enough there was plenty of yellow in my traps. Yellow can’t possibly be any more yellow than on the Canary-shouldered Thorn. This is a moth with both looks and colour going for it, and although common in East Lothian woodlands now, sadly for Alice it was absent from her list.

In varying combinations of yellow and pink are some of the sallow moths: Pink-barred Sallow, Centre-barred Sallow and Sallow were frequently recorded by Alice and are frequent now, with Pink-barred perhaps remaining the most commonly encountered both then and now.

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Yellow-line Quaker is more fawn-coloured than yellow: a smart harbinger of autumn and nowadays reasonably common. However, Alice only recorded one and found not by her but by William Evans, on an Oak trunk at Biel on 15th September 1894.

Green-brindled Crescent with its dusting of silvery-green is a common autumn favourite, according to Alice “Found occasionally, not rare”. She recorded it late September and early October at light and sugar. But the prize for smartest green moth must surely be awarded to the Merveille du Jour. Minty green with patterns of black and white, perfect camouflage for some of the leafy lichens growing on trees and perhaps reminiscent of a flavour of ice cream and summers on the beach. Did Alice find Merveille du Jour? Yes – she refers to it as “very common” encountering it at rest on tree trunks as well as attracting it to light and sugar.

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Chestnut were in most of my traps and Red-green Carpet numerous. Both species overwinter as adult moths, indeed I recorded these species on the Estate at the beginning of the year. However, it is at this time of year, when the adults are freshly emerged that their beautiful colours are at their finest. Perhaps because of this it is autumn-caught individuals that predominate in Alice’s specimen collection in the museum, even though she records them in her notebook in spring as well. A rich silky red-brown for the Chestnut and mossy-green streaked with red for the Red-green Carpet. Appropriately named moths.