Hummingbird heaven

I spent last week in the sweltering heat of Tuscany and arrived back on Saturday to find conditions back here in the UK pretty much the same!

But it isn’t just the weather that linked my first trip to Italy and what's going on here in the UK. A surprise visitor to my garden pre-work this morning took me right back to Italy. My wife Laura was hanging the washing out and I, of course, was doing my equal share of the chores inside (cough). As I was idly watching her while doing said important share of the housework, I spied a movement next to the single red valerian plant I have managed to establish in the back border just behind her. It is about ten metres from the kitchen windows, but I could see it was hovering and suspected it was something very interesting...

Red valerian is very popular with one of our best insects – the hummingbird hawkmoth. I’d seen a few in Italy last week and I was pretty confident, I may have been looking at a long-awaited garden first. I yelled at Laura to check if it was a hummingbird hawkmoth, Her reply of “I think so”, had me racing outside. It was indeed and I managed five seconds of great views of it nectaring at the red flowers before it did what these super active moths do, zipped high up in the air and tanked away over the rooftops.

The scene in my garden this morning - hummingbird hawkmoth at red valerian (Ben Andrew rspb-images.org)

There is nothing like planting something or making something in the garden with a specific species in mind and then seeing it pay off. My pond clearance has resulted in a healthy populations of smooth newts this summer and a common toad making the backbreaking work well worthwhile. See what you can do by visiting our Giving Nature a Home pages and getting a personal plan for your garden.

If there’s one thing that weather like this is good for, it is insects, so keep a close eye on your flowers over the next few days, or head to the waterside to look for dragonflies and damselflies. Enjoy the sunshine while you can!