Kitchen Garden Forum

Watering the Fuchsias yesterday afternoon, I found this little chap enjoying afternoon tea...


Click on photo for full image.

Large Elephant Hawk..perhaps.????

Pound coin lodged alongside for size ref...
....It looked ready to eat that too

Clive.

hi Clive,
Yes it is a Hawk moth caterpillar. My mum has them in her garden in Charmouth and they live in her fushia too. Never actually seen the moth but the caterpillars are very active around now and they can move a long distance in a short space of time.
Seedling

Crikey that's huge!
I'd be scared if i found that in my garden!

I've seen a few Hummingbird Hawk Moths at work - they are buzzing round our climber tunnels at the moment looking for the last few flowers of Star Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides). Beautiful moths that really do hover like a hummingbird & you can see them putting their tongues down into the flowers - very cool to see

Elephant Hawk Moths are really stunning, but not seen 1 in the UK yet.

Sue

My dad found an Elephant Hawk Moth when I was small and he had no idea what it was. I remember he took it to some natural history place to find out. I was about 5 years old and it seem as big as my arm with great big horns. It was really scary; I've never seen one since.

They turn out as really boring moths so I've heard; is that right?

Elephant hawk moths are lovely Chantal



and this is the hummingbird moth I've seen at work



Sue

Is that two different ones? Male and female? They're much prettier than I was led to believe.

Fabulous photos - Clive and Sue. Maybe Steve will give you an assignment on a future KG shoot?

Can't claim any credit for this photo....colleague Pauls camera was in use after I had spotted the "beast".

...I only supplied the financial support for it.

...it was my pound coin used for scale..!!

Humming Bird Hawk Moth spotted in the garden by a visitor a week or so ago...I didn't get to see it though...
Did see one in a garden down at Sutton on Sea last weekend though.
Clouded Yellow flutterby spotted in garden at home here last weekend..

Clive.

we had a hummingbird hawk moth a couple of years ago, not seen any here this year though they are about locally. its dragonflies that seem to be flourishing this year round here.

My OH has an overwhellming and irrational terror of moths, if one enters the room, however small, she leaves.
Some years ago we had an Elephant Hawk Moth in the living room one evening, the only light was the TV in the opposite corner.

I noticed it and said nowt, she walked through a couple of times with washing.
I then asked her if she had noticed the large moth, "what large moth" she replied.

That one up there, she looked and to my surprise, no reaction.

Silly thing is I had to work pretty hard to convince her it was a moth, its wings were completely furled and it looked as though I had stuck a sausage at the top of the wall.

However once I put the main light on, it started to move around the wall a bit, the wife left rather quickly and refused to come downstairs until I had, gently, captured the poor beast for release outside.

Even sillier thing is, despite her near rabid terror, she had to watch me release it outside to convince herself it was gone.

Hi Sue,
I read about the Humming Bird Moths and remember them when I lived in Hertfordshire and walked through my old nursery site this morning and damn me there were half a dozen darting in and out of a patch of Platycodon. I have been here in Herefordshire for more than 30 years and today was the first I have ever seen here. They used not to breed here and came across the Channel each year but I wonder if the do in fact breed in UK now.
We get Privet Hawk Moths and strangely I have never seen them on the Privet they always make a Bee-line for the Tomato plants. These really are beautiful and have the most peculiarly shaped wings and look as though something have taken a bite out of them.
They have a wingspan I should think approaching 3".
JB.