#30DaysWild Day 11 - Handsome hawkmoths!

Putting the moth trap out overnight is always exciting, as you just never know what might be out there. We always hope there might be a hawkmoth in the trap in the morning as they're big, bold and beautiful ... definitely our favourite. We put the trap out Friday night in its usual 'try not to upset the neighbours with the light' position behind the shed. On Saturday we were a bit more daring and placed it in the middle of our unmown lawn (our 'meadow'), which is a bit more open.

In the meadow

Everybody rushed down in their pyjamas to see what we'd caught ... and we weren't disappointed!

Saturday morning we had a pine hawkmoth and two elephant hawkmoths.

Pine hawkmoth (grey) and elephant hawkmoth (pink and green)

 

A handful of hawkmoths

Then on Sunday morning we had a privet hawkmoth sitting on the entrance to the trap, two elephant hawkmoths inside the trap and an eyed hawkmoth on the grass nearby.

Privet hawkmoth



The new #30DaysWild badges

The privet hawkmoth is our largest resident hawkmoth and has beautiful pink and black bands on its body and hindwings. They're very obliging moths and are happy to sit on a nose and have their photo taken! We've caught a few of these in the past.

Eyed hawkmoths have beautiful blue 'eyes' on their pink hindwings, which they flash if they're startled. This is only the second one we've caught and both times they've been attracted to the light but haven't gone inside the trap.

The pine hawkmoth is the plainest of the hawkmoths we caught this weekend. This is the first one we've trapped, although we did once find a caterpillar.



The elephant hawkmoth is by far the most colourful of our catch this weekend. They're slightly smaller than the others and we catch quite a lot of them, but they are such stunning colours. They prove that not all moths are small and brown!

All of the moths were safely released back into the wild. This video shows one of the elephant hawkmoths as it warms up its wings, then takes off.