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NEWSLETTER No. 42 -  Spring 1999

WEST MIDLANDS BRANCH, BUTTERFLY CONSERVATION

 

Supermoth is it a bird?

Supermoth. It always causes great excitement whenever it is seen. Mike Ecob phoned to tell me about his sighting at the end of July and then about a month or so later to tell me about his friend Pat Duffy. "I knew what he'd seen even before he told me, because of the excitement in his voice" he said. The Humming-bird Hawk Moth never fails to impress as it darts from flower to flower, its long proboscis probing each bloom for nectar and all the while emitting an audible hum. Our forefathers reacted similarly, J.W.Tutt (British Moths-1896.) described it thus:

"With the rapidity of lightning something crosses between us and the flower, we see something hovering and quivering over one of the masses of bloom. Ah! You stretch your neck forward to look at it, to see what it is! It is gone like a shadow, like a flash, more quickly than it came. Stand a little closer. Hold your breath and do not stir. Another shadow passes between you and the flower. You do not move, and you see a quivering body and wings; wings moving so rapidly that they are almost invisible, and causing a hum, pitched on such a high note that it is almost inaudible, and you begin to wonder what must be the rate of vibration necessary to produce that hum. You inadvertently move, and the insect is gone immediately. Another wait and it reappears, and this time you mark two sparkling eyes brilliant as diamonds, and a tongue surely reaching down into the flower."
I fear Mr Tutt got a little carried away with the hum. The sound of the Humming-bird Hawk Moth is at the bottom end of the audible range i.e. low frequency, insects like mosquitoes occupy the top end of the frequency range.

The little note in the Winter Newsletter produced 5 more reports, so the complete list of sightings with their nectar plants is shown overleaf.

Many thanks to all who wrote in. One authority states that there are on average about 50 sightings per year in the UK, so 7 in the West Midlands would seem to be a fair share. You will see that the sightings are from all over the region and are spread from June to September.

The Humming-bird Hawk Moth breeds all over the warmer parts of Europe and is generally a migrant to the UK. It is a very powerful flyer penetrating as far north as the polar regions and up mountains as far as the vegetation persists. It reached North America some 30 years ago. It would appear that it is able to hibernate either as a moth or as a pupa provided that there is no frost. Therefore in southern regions the moth can be seen on the wing as early as February or March and there are occasionally such reports from Cornwall. However most sightings start in June when the main emergence from the over-wintering pupae takes place. If we have had an exceptionally mild winter, some of these may be from our own southern counties, but in general they are continental migrants.

Several of the sightings were on Red Valerian (Centranthus Ruber) sometimes known as Pretty Betsy, a garden perennial that has "escaped" and naturalised itself on walls, banks and rocky places. It’s a good butterfly and moth nectar plant and is rated among Margaret Vickery's "Top Ten" in "Gardening for Butterflies". She observes that the pink flowered forms attract more butterfles than the white or red forms. Our native Valerian (Valeriana Officionalis) is a different plant although related to Red Valerian. One wonders if it is also attractive to these Hawk Moths. The attraction of Buddleia comes as no suprise, but Geranium certainly does (I assume that this refers to the Pelargonium.)

There is another much more common moth that has the same hovering/darting behaviour, and that is the Silver Y Moth. It is also a migrant and can be very common indeed in some years, but it is much smaller than the Humming-bird and has prominent silver coloured "Y's" on its fore wings and flies quite silently. The Humming-bird has one further feature of note, on the tail end of the abdomen are several tufts that look like the tail feathers of a bird adding to its Humming-bird like appearance. Look out for it this summer, it really is a super moth.

Digby Wood