Clays - A lesson learnt.

On 1 July I trapped my first Clay. It looked exactly like the illustration in Townsend and Waring. Here it is on the top.
Today I caught the moth in the bottom photo and asked Tony for advice. Looking at my book I thought it might just be a Neglected Rustic (because of the colour) - but I did realise this was very unlikely.

However, it turned out to be another Clay. Lesson learnt. There can be a lot of variation in colour within a species - don’t allow yourself to be fooled by a single illustration in one book. The illustrator is having to make difficult choices when deciding which individual to use.