Hatton's Garden.org.uk       Moths, Butterflies, Insects, Water Fowl, other Birds, Mammals, Reptiles and Fungi in the UK, and abroad.

Hi, I'm Dave Hatton, and I had my own business as a self employed computer engineer. My business was to building new desktop PC's from scratch. I also sold computer accessories components, laptops as well as repairing PC's, until I retired in 2018.

My interest in wildlife has been life long, having being brought up in what was once, a small rural village in Cheshire. As children, my friends and I, spent many happy hours wandering through the nearby country lanes. We would see birds, butterflies, and study the Stickleback's in the brook. One day I sneaked about a hundred cinnabar caterpillars into our family home. Placing them into a large shoe box with Ragwort, I had made air holes for them to breathe. Of course, the holes were too large, and by morning they had wandered all over my bedroom walls and ceiling. When my mother woke me the following morning, she was horrified, and my father was not well pleased.

My wife and I took trips abroad, that were mainly to the Channel Islands, and Florida where I took many photographs. We had four trips to Orlando in Florida, between 2004 and 2008. Elaine and I visited Jersey C.I. in 2006 and 2016, firstly for our honey moon, and the second time for our tenth anniversary.

Lots of pictures were taken in the garden of houses where I have lived. There are also a fair number of images from tropical houses in the UK, The Mosaic shown on this page is a good example, as is the Silk Moth (samia cynthia) which is also shown on this site.

Lincolnshire is our chosen holiday destination for the last few years. There are lots good nature reserves in Lincolnshire, as well as Yorkshire, where I live near to Leeds.

Gibraltar Point, Chambers Farm Wood and Rimac on the Theddlethorpe Dunes are extremely good National Nature and Local Nature Reserves in Lincolnshire. Chambers Farm Wood has a large meadow, which is full of wild flowers, including Devils-bit Scabious. In the meadow there are Marsh Fritillary, Mother Shipton, Marbled Whites and many other species. Also the wood has a visitor centre with a butterfly garden. In this garden are Broad-bordered Bee Hawk moths. Rimac has a lot of day flying moths, including Burnet Companion.

My favourite nature reserves in Yorkshire up to now are Brockadale (YWT/YBC, Hetchell Wood (YWT) and Fairburn Ings (RSPB). But who knows as I try new nature reserves, some of my favourites may change.

My wife and I, have been members of Butterfly Conservation for nearly sixteen years now. I was also a member for seven years in the eighties, it was then called 'The British Butterfly Conservation Society'. During this time for many years, I was an active member as a Vice County Records Co-ordinator. I co-ordinated all the records for VC65 for a few years, and then for VC64 for a few more years. Recently Elaine and I joined the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, who have a great many nature reserves throughout the county.

Most species illustrated are listed in their taxonomic order, according to the new Revised list of British Lepidoptera by Agassiz, Beavan and Heckford, and also with the older Bradley and Fletcher numbering system. To look up any species that is found on this website, please use the search engine, or the macro, or micro moth family search.

Using the search engine you can get directly to any one species, provided it is featured on this website, and the name is spelt correctly.

There are several species featured on each page, some may be lower down on the page window. If the species that you searched for is not immediately in view, scroll down the page.

Using the macro/micro and contacts link buttons, you can select the family the species belongs too. This will take you to the first member of that family, but only those that are featured on the website. Some links on the family page may be greyed out, and dead until such a time as relevant species are added. You can also move from page, to page using the Prev or Next links towards the top right on each page. Also on the home page, their is a link to a species list, from their you can select a species you wish to view.

There are more than two and a half thousand species of butterflies and moths to be seen in the UK. There are thousands of insects to see, Beetles, Shield Bugs, Dragon and Damselflies to name but a few. On this site I have many pictures of Butterflies, Moths, Dragon and Damselflies, True Bugs, various flies, Bee's, Beetles, including Ladybirds, Wasps and parasitic insects.

Although there are several hundred species of insects featured on my old website, I have decided to start with my best four hundred or so, most presentable species images on the Hatton's Garden website. As I time goes' by, I will vet some of the other photographs, and gradually add them to the site. for the moment I will put a mixed selection of macros, and other insects. I feel that my latest attempt at web design is more presentable, and a bit less amateurish than my previous attempt.

Some of the images from my old website are of poorish quality. This particularly applies to the images from Florida, which I have decided to put several pictures, on just two pages. The equipment I was using at the time was not well suited to macro photography. However you may find a sample of butterflies from Florida interesting.

This website is not intended to be an identification manual, but to share with you a some of my experiences from over the years. My website is non profit, and is purely a hobby, some errors may have crept in here and there. Please feel free to email me with constructive criticism, it will be greatly valued.

So enough said, I invite you to come on in, and take a look a look at the fascinating, and often beautiful world of insects.

Last updated: 31st of January 2023.