Appearance of dark crimson underwing causes excitement on land that would be bisected by road scheme

Beneath oak canopies, in an orchard full of hundred-year-old apple trees, excited exclamations rose from a group of moth enthusiasts last week.

The Cambridgeshire Moth Group had just trapped a dark crimson underwing, a species so rare that none of them had ever seen it before. Indeed, the colourful invertebrate is only usually ever found in the New Forest and is considered nationally scarce.