Thursday 16 June 2011

Seven out of eight (so far)

Hmmm... I think Charlie's fixed the bar a bit high in the Grand Competition which he set in the post below. I just checked a new discovery of mine on this blog - the section called Stats in the organising page - and I see to my amazement and joy that people have landed on the site from Brazil, Iran and other far-flung spots. But they must still be puzzling over the Fletcher Anagrams, and very nobly not feeding them into an anagram decoding machine, because no one has come up with answers, yet.

I haven't done any anagram machine cheating either, and I'm still puzzling over the second micro - the asparagus clue. But I've cracked the other seven and since I don't want to prolong competitors' agonies or the travails of Worm (see Comment on post below), here they are in the order of Charlie's clues.

Shuttle-shaped Dart
Common Marbled Carpet
Dusky Brocade
Large Yellow Underwing
Pandemis cerasana (that was tough) Also known as The Barred Fruit Tree Tortrix
Rustic Shoulder Knot
Pale Mottled Willow

...and then the mystery moth. More on that when I finally triumph, unless someone beats me to it. If you do, you will win the Valuable Prize, because otherwise I will have to award it to Charlie who is claiming it on the logical but morally dubious grounds that he knows the answers.

None of the above are new here, incidentally, which shows the difficulty of moth identification, at least so far as I am concerned.

This is the first post on this blog not to have a picture. Fact.
It is also the first to be posted from a mobile on a train. Groundbreaking stuff...

3 comments:

Bennyboymothman said...

Well it must be a right challenge identifying a moth in a pot whilst jostling about in a moving train! :) i've no idea on the mystery moth but i'll guess at Dark Arches, it doesn't hurt guessing!

worm said...

your moths have beaten me Martin!

MartinWainwright said...

Hi gang

Thanks for the brain-crunching. Actually Ben, the mystery moth which I haven't got is the last one in the picture sequence - the black and white micro with the clue: Iambic asparagus oil

I was doing a bit of Googling on the train and found the micro family called Aglossa which sounds promising but then my 15 minutes of free wifi cut out. I've got to do some work now but will return to the quest later

all v best to both, and all other unknown puzzlers

M