Wildlife Wonders

Moth or Butterfly?

Here's a little backstory to go with the picture above:

Whilst taking some rubbish to the outside bin at work I came across said insect and thought to move it from the path it was sitting on, to save it being accidently trod on. Of course it fluttered off the moment I was within touching distance, flying erratically in the gusty wind, causing me to chase it erratically through the car park as it kept landing in ridiculous places and I was now determined to see it to safety (well the safety of the nearby bushes). 

Finally it landed on some gravel, right underneath the bushes I had been shepherding it towards. I managed to snap a picture of the insect before it took flight again, and promptly forgot I'd taken the picture when I put my phone in my pocket and carried on taking the bag of rubbish to the bin. Until now. 

Today I remembered about the picture when I stumbled across the Moths Count website, and I decided to identify the insect. Is it a moth or a butterfly? I used this butterfly identification webpage and this moth identification webpage, but I was unable to find it on both (I'm obviously useless at ID). I was about to give up when I typed 'red and black moth uk' into google and voila! Google image shows up the moth (it's a moth I now know!) so I click on the image, although the moth is still unidentified, and just labeled 'red and black moth'. Infuriating.

Luckily the next image produced the moths name: 

Cinnabar moth

And here's tons of information regarding this rather beautiful moth.

I'm fairly certain the first time I saw these beautiful birds was druing a field trip in The Gambia (specifically landing on the canopy of a mangrove forest during an early morning 'creek crawl' at Tendaba). Now I'm slightly biased when I call these beautiful, being within the same family (Ardeidae) which includes my all-time favourite bird: the Grey heron (Ardea cinerea).