These migrant moths are always a delight to watch as they hover at flowers like tiny hummingbirds.
A delight, that is, provided you are not trying to photograph them! They have an extraordinary turn of speed and a very irregular stop start flight pattern.
Only occasionally do these day flying moths stop and when they do they are easily over looked – see last years National Moth Day results.
The one pictured was one of two Hummingbird Hawk-moths that appeared amongst several Painted Lady butterflies nectaring at Red Valerian at Poldhu on the Lizard in Cornwall. All images can be enlarged by clicking on them.A couple of weeks earlier at the same coastal site the first main arrival of Painted Lady butterflies were all nectaring on a single bank of Thrift.
Already, the flowers on this bank of Thrift have withered and the migrant insects have turned their attention to the Red Valerian which is a plant that grows abundantly throughout much of Cornwall both in gardens and in the wild.