Say hello to an Elephant Hawkmoth. They are very friendly, docile beasts. What an amazing colour scheme too.
Much smaller and more understated but no less attractive - this is a Burnished Brass. When I took it into the sunshine to photograph, I suddenly realised just how shiny and metallic they are - as if they have gold leaf on their wings. Amazing!
Not so many Privet Hawkmoths as the previous catch, but this time I arranged some of them on the wall for a group photo. You can see the pink stripy body on the right-hand one.
And, for any moth nerds reading, here's the list of ones we did identify. There are some more photos on Flickr of the ones I haven't dared put a name to. Your help to ID them would be most appreciated!
In numerical order:
- Dark Arches, 94!
- Common Wainscot, 16
- Heart & Dart, 16
- Buff Arches, 11
- Privet Hawkmoth, 9
- Setaceous Hebrew Character, 9
- Common Footman, 8
- Elephant Hawkmoth, 7
- Light Arches, 6
- Willow Beauty, 4
- Large Yellow Underwing, 3
- Mother of Pearl, 3
- Peppered Moth, 3
- The Clay, 3
- Figure of Eighty, 2
- Flame-shoulder, 2
- Beautiful Hook-tip
- Brimstone, 1
- Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing
- Double Square-spot
- Ghost Moth
- Least Carpet
- Lesser Swallow Prominent
- Poplar Grey (I think)
- Silver Y
- Swallow-tailed Moth
Great stuff Katie, the Elephant Hawkmoth is a beauty.
ReplyDeleteCould you kindly remind me whether or not you OK'd my putting your photographs on Birds2blog please....short memory you understand!
Great shots Katie - my Burnished Brass flew off before i could photograph it :-o
ReplyDelete@Pete, yes that's fine
ReplyDelete@YvonneB, hope you manage to catch another one. Been getting them regularly here, one or two each catch