They were flying quickly over the tops of heather searching out the nocturnal females hidden in the vegetation.
It always sounds a little odd to learn that a male and female of a species are active at different times of the day. How do they ever ‘get it together’?
Well, as always, nature has a solution – the pheromones given off by the females being so irresistibly powerful that they put the most potent man made perfume to shame.
A tad whimpish? Perhaps, but adders are fairly common here and I have a feeling that there may be a certain downside to standing on one – the Adder would probably agree! See Recent Adder post
The image above is of a male Emperor Moth lured to a captive bred female by her pheromones in North Cornwall in April 2010.
