The Night Ledger

A cold start and a slow sheet for two hours; then, within ten minutes, three Aglia tau males came in low over the sedge as if they had been waiting behind the alders for a signal. First light of the season is always the same small miracle.

Taken 18 · released 18 · first saturniid of the year

Four male Saturnia pavonia in the first hour, comb-feathers working overtime. They do not feed; they have one week and one purpose, and you can feel the hurry in the way they hit the calico. I sat with the lamp off for a while afterwards, ears ringing with nothing.

Taken 47 · released 47 · 4 pavonia ♂

Full moon usually empties the sheet, but the ragwort field sent a flight of Tyria jacobaeae regardless — red-banded abdomens flashing as they rolled off the light. Counted against the moon both ways tonight.

Taken 33 · released 33

First Laothoe populi of the season, heavy as small birds, thumping against the calico from half past ten until the wind turned. One sat on my notebook for an hour with its wings held like a furled umbrella — the pose the book calls “resting,” which undersells it entirely.

Taken 52 · released 52 · 6 populi

Ninety-six moths of nineteen species before the generator coughed twice and the cloud came down. An elpenor female unfurled her pink hindwings on my sleeve like she was showing me the answer to a question I hadn’t asked. The sheet looked like a tapestry being re-woven every minute. This is what the whole season is for.

Taken 96 · released 96 · season record

The rosy footmen are in along the oak ride — small, neat, immaculate — and the big nights are thinning out. August at the lamp is a long exhale: fewer moths, longer silences, and the first brown leaves on the sheet by two in the morning.

Taken 40 · released 40