Crane-fly Tipula maxima on outside of back door of herbarium building, 29 June 2015. Photo Robert Mill.

On the morning of 29 June I arrived at the back door of the herbarium to start my day’s work and spotted two insects on the door. One was a large crane-fly with strongly patterned wings while the other was a moth with warm-brown beautifully cryptically marked wings whose colour very closely matched that of the door! The crane-fly (photo above) was identified as Tipula maxima and the moth (photo below) was a Plain Golden Y, Autographa jota. Both were the first records of their species at RBGE, although neither is especially uncommon. To find two new Garden records simultaneously, however, is unusual and to find them both on a door even more so! The crane-fly was disturbed when the door was opened but the moth was still present at lunch-time when I took further photographs of it and thought that, although ‘Plain’ by name it was actually more beautifully marked and less ‘plain’ than its near relative, Beautiful Golden Y, which has been on the Garden’s wildlife list for several years.

Plain Golden Y Autographa jota, on herbarium back door, 29 June 2015. Photo Robert Mill.