Well, this was a surprise. Penny and I were just enjoying a glass of wine yesterday evening in our conservatory when a loud mixture of buzz, whine and hum alerted me to what I thought was a hornet or very large bumble bee. It was neither. The hum was the clue. A beautiful Hummingbird Hawk moth spent five minutes sipping nectar from our climbing geraniums before heading off to sleep - judging by its disappearance for the rest of the evening - in our thickly-leaved and tumbling grape vine.
I've been expecting more hawk moths to add to my current total of four for this year - Poplar, Lime, Privet and Large Elephant - but I was betting on either an Eyed or Pine to come next. It just shows how you never know. Wouldn't absolute predictability be dull?
Meanwhile here is a beautiful portfolio of Light Emeralds, above, showing the wayward nature of iPhone digital cameras with colour as they hunt for light; the two on the left are closer to the natural, eye's view in my experience. Those on the right are more like the species when it's been around for a week or two and the fresh green has started to fade.
Now for some butterflies, to celebrate the lovely weather. First, a Small Tortoiseshell which accompanied me along a local path across a grassy meadow.
Then a male Orange-tip on a lovely two-day walk we did last week up the River Wey to help raise funding for cousin in long-term care after a cycling accident. And finally a skittish Comma which also seemed to enjoy my company out walking.
One of the glories of walking at the moment is the profuse flowering of Tudor briar roses which hang in great swags of white, pink and occasionally red blooms. I randomly took the photo below and was pleasantly surprised when I had a look and only then spotted the little green jewel of a beetle. Poor thing, it has a very unflattering range of names: the sadly accurate Swollen-thighed Beetle, similarly the Fat-legged Flower Beetle and finally the False Oil Beetle. Why not the Beautiful Emerald Beetle? Perhaps another species got there first.
New-for-the-year moths are arriving every day and I'm faithfully registering them on iRecord, but my latest list had a non-moth exception: this beautiful but intensely annoying Roe Deer which still manages to get into our garden in spite of all manner of barriers. Luckily our veg is well-protected now but we don't underestimate the deer's determination and cunning.
Now for some of those new arrivals, below: Riband Wave, Nematopogon swammerdamella (a 'longhorn' micro whose name is as impressive as its antannae), Smoky Wainscot and a micro whose ID both I and my iPhone have yet to nail down.
Next the familiar micro Cochylis atricapitana, a Blood-vein, another micro regular Agapeta hamana,
a very distinctively marked Tawny Marbled Minor, a European Corn-borer micro and a delicate Common White Wave.
Finally, here comes a Small Clouded Brindle on my rather imperial purple eggbox, a pretty but ridiculously-named Single-dotted Wave and something unknown for now, possibly a fading Yellow-barred Brindle or Seraphim.
Oh and just to leave you on a quirky note, here's a Pale Tussock looking like a Star Wars bit-player. More soon.