Valerian and the Hawkmoth !

 Some late summer memories.

Sitting in the garden as I often  seem to do these days, with plenty of time on my hands, I'm always on the lookout for a wildlife encounter, on just such an occasion, what I thought was a large Bumble bee of sorts, caught my eye, it was investigating a tub of Verbena that had been placed by my pond,
suddenly a 'eureka' moment struck me, this was no Bumbleblebee but a Hummingbird Hawkmoth, I nearly fell out of my swinging chair, where was my camera when I needed it, I rushed indoors and grabbed my camera, the Hummingbird Hawkmoth was nowhere to be seen on my return.

 As I sat back down, I could see that the Hummingbird Hawkmoth had discovered my clump of Valerian further down the garden which I had grown for just such an occasion.

This time  I thought I would watch for a time and try and get a photograph later as it happily hovered around the Valerian flowers in a typical Hummingbird fashion.

What a stunning day-flying moth this was, I took a few photographs as you can imagine, most of which were out of focus, trickly moth to capture as they move from flower to flower, but I did manage a couple of photographs, some showing the long proboscis.

I caught sight of this Hawkmoth  on two more occasions the following day, and then no more.

I think planting the Valerian was a huge success, which I may now move some around the garden,
in the hope for more sightings next year.

Hummingbird Hawkmoth