A meeting with a moth on the train
Long live Mothew
This time last week I was on a train to Brixton when something caught my eye on the floor. It was a large moth behaving very strangely. I carefully scooped him up with my driving license and realised he was not in a good way - one of his underwings was not where it should be and he seemed to be leaving a trail of what I can only describe as moth dust everywhere he went. The poor thing wobbled about a bit and managed to crawl from my driving license onto my leg.
As safely as I could, I transported Mothew, who turned out to be a lime hawk-moth, off the train. At this point I was pretty desperate for a wee, having boarded the train 35 minutes earlier desperate for a wee, only to find the one toilet on board was out of order. It’s this I blame for the fact that when I Googled the moth (in order to find the most suitable place to leave it with the most chance of survival), what I was actually looking up was the lime hawk-moth caterpillar. In my state of desperation I wasn’t thinking clearly! What I discovered is that, as well as lime trees and some cultivars of cherry, lime hawk-moth caterpillars feed on plane trees. So I left Mothew on a lovely big plane tree on Brixton High Street, where, let’s be honest, he probably died. But if he did, at least his last view might have been the gorgeous Stay in Peace artwork by Farouk Agoro and Akil Scafe-Smith on Brixton’s railway bridge, and not some chewing gum stuck under a train seat.
Yesterday, at Wild South London’s Midsummer Nature Festival in Beckenham Place Park, Butterfly Conservation had a stand. Despite the fact I’d organised the event (with a small and brilliant team of trustees, workshop leaders and volunteers), it wasn’t until halfway through the day I realised Butterfly Conservation had also brought some very special guests: lime hawk-moth caterpillars. I was so excited to meet them!!
According to Butterfly Conservation:
“The yellow-striped green caterpillar has a blue horn, but, when it is ready to pupate, its colour changes to a purplish-grey and it wanders around looking for a site to pupate in; this is when it is most often seen, crawling down Lime tree trunks, or on pavements (often squashed).”
A more practical and less sentimental person than me would probably say Mothew would have been better off had he been squashed, but if you gave me the choice, I’d probably pick the nice big lime tree on Brixton High Street over a smelly sandal on a Southeastern train as a final resting place.
Long live Mothew!
Thank you to everyone who came to the Midsummer Nature Festival yesterday! I was so busy that I took almost no photos, but keep an eye out over on the Wild South London Instagram account for some photos from Eleanor when she’s recovered! We had 375 people through the doors of Beckenham Place Mansion and it was SO lovely to see so many people of all ages engaging with nature in different ways. If you’re interested in butterflies and moths, support Butterfly Conservation and follow Şeniz Mustafa, one of their youth panellists, who led two events for us yesterday!
P.S. If you’re looking for something to watch, check out Anohni and the Johnsons at Glastonbury - a captivating, beautiful and important set.
P.P.S. Yesterday, someone asked me to record my newsletters so they could listen to them instead of reading them and I PROMISE I will get around to doing this soon! If there are any other ways I can make things more accessible for you, please comment or message me, I’m very much open for feedback!
This made me happy because I move dead bees off the pavement and into the grass or soil. It just seems like they deserve better than being stepped on.
RIP Mothew - he met a good human.