Extra broods etc

Autumn is well with us moth-wise. Though numbers of the expected species are small in my garden, they're all turning up (except Large Ranunculus!!!). Have even had Satellite and Dark Chestnut already. Beautiful Hook-tip seems to regularly have this late autumnal generation now and have had a couple of very fresh ones recently. Common Wainscot second generation continues to do well and the Mallow's are starting to come now along with Blair's Shoulder-knot. Quite a number of species seem to fitting in extra generations this year - have seen reports of 3rd Generation Common Blues to show it isn't limited to the moths. On this theme I walked my Little Wittenham butterfly transect the other day and found 4 Chinese Character larvae on blackthorn. One was almost fully grown so we might see a fourth generation of this awesome little moth? The third generation we had included the greatest numbers of this species I have seen, but it was extremely short-lived, over in a week, so it seems they just got down to business with very little messing about. Marc Botham, Benson