Blog Postings

The postings will be introductions to each of my life lists. The lists themselves will appear in the side margin. I shall do some postings about particular localities and there will also be postings to provide updates every time I add a new species.
Please note that I am not qualified in any aspect of natural history - there will therefore be occasional (or, apparently, in the case of the hoverflies, a lot of) errors.

Friday, 10 June 2011

Hummingbird Hawkmoth

 

On Wednesday Brother-who-blogs took Partner-who-loves-tea and I to Chirk Castle for the day. Highlight of the day for me was not directly to do with the castle or gardens – it was a new moth species – the Hummingbird Hawkmoth.





The wings go up and down at around 70 complete beats per second which makes it hard to photograph – especially as it was on the far side of a wide border. When it decides it has had enough it can zoom off at about 30 mph - making it one of the fastest insects on the planet.



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2 comments:

  1. Helen10 June 2011 at 09:19

    Oh it's absolutely fantastic. I think they're great photos :-)

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  2. Scriptor Senex11 June 2011 at 04:39

    Interestingly, as you can see from the blurring, the "tail" moves up and down almost as fast as the wings but I can't find any information about how fast exactly.

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