Country Diary: Claxton, Norfolk

Perhaps when trying to unravel why it is we've traditionally loved butterflies, but disliked moths, we should remember the famous words of Ann Widdecombe on her colleague. Just as there was "something of the night" about Michael Howard, so the nocturnal preferences of these glorious insects have banished them to the shadows of our imaginations. When it comes to what are perhaps the most beautiful and mysterious in all this order of insects, the hawkmoths, our traditional attitudes seem even more unfavorable. In the past one of them - the death's-head hawkmoth - was an omen of death, partly because of the skull image on its thorax. Its scientific name is Acherontia atropos. The smallest and most terrible of the three white-robed fates, Atropos was she who snipped the thread of life once Zeus had measured a person and judged their end was nigh.

Yet I can think of few better ambassadors for moths in general than the nine species of hawkmoth breeding in Britain. A personal favorite is the elephant hawkmoth. It shows just how exquisitely nature can blend the most unlikely colors - in this case, intense bands of pink and a rather limy-toned shade of green-brown. Others, however, prefer one of the largest of the group, the pink-and-black-banded privet hawkmoths.

Last year I was thrilled to see the reaction of a classroom when I took my moth-trap (and its privet hawkmoths) into a local school. The response of one young budding poet stands out in particular. The gist of his moth rap, which is surely breaking entirely new artistic ground in terms of subject matter, was everything I could have hoped for. It basically said what I would love to express. Moths are really cool.