Knowing the lights were set on Friday night, and having kept track of the weather forecast... heavy rain overnight and the promise of a dull, wet Saturday... I wasn't expecting anything other than 'run of the mill' species in the moth traps at Tophill Low NR, East Yorkshire.
A stunning Striped Hawkmoth sitting on an eggbox in one of the traps was a massive surprise... here it is perched up! albeit after some time in the fridge...
A new addition to the Tophill Lepidoptera list that gets added to week in week out.
Apart from the spectacular, the traps held 'the expected' number of moths. A single Diamond-back was the other smart beast, while the first Silky Wainscots of the year helped pad things out along with 4 Southern Wainscots, something we haven't trapped many of in recent years.
But... Striped Hawk! It has been a long time since I've seen Striped Hawk in the UK. Still young, my memory is good and I remember summer evenings in Suffolk back in 1996 when we had Striped and Silver-striped Hawkmoths nectaring on the honeysuckle in the garden at a house near Sizewell power station.
I've no pictures of 'that' Silver Striped Hawk, but to increase 'the list of species mentioned/photographed/listed' on the blog, I'll post a few pics of one that was collected for me to photograph by a friend in the Algarve, Portugal, two years ago.
Who knows, with a bit of luck, and more dispersal of species from where they occur according to outdated surveys... (for those that call themselves environmentalists, who hate this sort of thing... I believe it is called progression) both might, one day, be nectaring on the Tophill buddleias! Until then... it will probably be just Hummingbird Hawkmoths!
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