Hummingbird hawkmoth: a bit of video

[dianeduane]

You may have seen the cool posting in BoingBoing some weeks ago about the hummingbird hawkmoth. If you did, this short YouTube video from our garden (it's an .MPG file) might amuse you. (There's also a version of the video here at Photobucket: I think their transfer went a little better.) Anyway, before we went away to CopperCon, Peter caught a few seconds of one of the local hawkmoths "tanking up" while the white buddleia bush in the front rockery was in bloom.

The species is Macroglossum stellatarum. Apparently (according to the Reader's Digest Field Guide to the Butterflies and Other Insects of Britain) hawkmoths of this species migrate to the UK and Ireland from France each year. (Some may also overwinter in the southern counties of each island). They were fairly rare in the UK when the book was written in 1984 -- it states that normally about fifty per year would be spotted: though there were very occasional years (as in 1947) when thousands might be seen. 

When Peter took this video in our garden, there were easily ten of them hanging around and working the buddleia -- which is a favorite with all the butterflies because it's so fragrant and produces so much nectar in the long flower-spikes. I find myself wondering whether the  lengthening of our local summers over the last couple of decades -- and their earlier onset -- is making it easier for increased numbers of the hawkmoths to get here from France: or whether maybe we now have a breeding population of our own in Ireland....

(Amusing sidelight: note the tiny spark of "blue-eye" that the flash from Peter's camera inflicted on the moth.)

(Edit: Direct link to MPG file removed due to something like $300 worth of bandwidth overage charges to our server since yesterday...)

Comments

[snakey.livejournal.com]

Thank you - I saw one of these many years ago in Somerset, and never knew what it was.

[artela.livejournal.com]

We've had several in the garden here in South Wet Wales... and at least one was also spotted while with friends in Somerset a few weeks ago.

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

Wow, what an amazing creature! I am in awe of Mother Nature's ability to populate this planet with such variety.

[xipuloxx.livejournal.com]

That is extremely cool. I saw one of these in my parents' garden in Lisburn many years ago. At first I thought it was a hummingbird, but when it sat still I realised it was an insect of some sort. It looked kind of mothlike but I wasn't sure, and when I looked in the encyclopaedia I found a picture of a hawk moth and realised it was one of those.

But I didn't know (until now) there was a species called the hummingbird hawk moth! That explains why I at first thought it was a hummingbird...

Hmm, the book that states that only about 50 a year would be spotted - how would they know? I'm sure lots of people, like me, saw one but weren't sure what it was or didn't tell the zoologists!

[camwyn]

Sweet baby Eris! So that's what was in my parents' garden in New Jersey several years ago! We never could identify it and had some trouble describing it accurately to a university entomologist I contacted online (although I think he suggested it might have been this species).

[wolfette]

"buddleia" - so that's what that damn plant is! Grows wild on every bit of waste ground here, forming jungles that are less easy to access than the Amazon. And it's very ........ pungent. (actually, some people like the scent - to me it just stinks)

[marmelmm.livejournal.com]

Hee! Cute lil' guy. In flight refuelling, as it were.

[tabbyclaw.livejournal.com]

Most bugs don't bother me (when they're not invading my house), but those guys freak me the everloving Hell out for no discernible reason.