I hope you didn't miss our species of the week blog last week. A combination of catching up following 12 days out of the office and a busy programme of activities meant that I didn't get the chance to post one. Hopefully normal service will now be resumed for the rest of the year, and this week we return with one of the most exciting insects on our 70 species challenge. Despite being a scarce visitor, which can be quite unpredictable to find at times and easy to spot at other times, it's also a species that is as likely to turn up in your own garden as at one of the RSPB's 200+ nature reserves.
The species in question is a large day-flying moth, but when it turns up in gardens it's often mistaken for something much more exotic - a hummingbird. There's a good reason for this, as it's called a hummingbird hawkmoth precisely because it bears a striking resemblance to one of the smaller members of the Latin American bird family. Its wings flap extremely rapidly as it flies from flower to flower, or hovers in front of blooms to gather nectar with it's long proboscis.
Hummingbird hawkmoth by Peter Simpson
Hummingbird hawkmoths are migrants, visiting the UK every summer from Central and Southern Europe, where they are much more common. Numbers vary every year, but this year looks to be a good year to find them, and August is always the best month to see them.
At least one hummingbird hawkmoth has been feeding on the buddleia and lavender around the visitor centre this week, but it pays to check any sightings carefully as there have also been sightings of the closely related and similar-looking broad-bordered bee-hawkmoth. The latter is generally much scarcer in the UK, and best seen at Minsmere in June, but like the hummigbird hawkmoth it can be seen throughout the summer.
A broad-bordered bee-hawkmoth taken earlier this year. Note the bee-like banding on the body compared to the hummingbird hawkmoth
In fact, it's not necessary to have a long walk to see some amazing creatures and behaviour at Minsmere at the moment, as an incredible variety of insects can be seen within 100 metres of the visitor centre.
As well as the moths mentioned above, one of our largest butterflies, the silver-washed fritillary, has also been present this week - this is a butterfly that is bucking the trend and spreading northward and eastward and is slowly colonising the Suffolk coast, presumably benefiting from climate change.
However, it's not safe to be a butterfly on the buddleias at moment as yesterday there were at least separate sightings of our local hornets catching, killing and eating red admirals. I witnessed this behaviour myself, and it was amazing to watch this large wasps carrying such big prey. It wasn't the only insect-insect predation seen yesterday either as one visitor watched a German wasp decaptiting a live ruddy darter dragonfly. He even got video footage of this gruesome behaviour.
A slightly less aggressive hornet
Other insects around the visitor centre area include the huge hornet hoverfly, tiny green-eyed flower-bee,various bumblebees, butterflies and dragonflies around the buddleias, plus newly discovered colonies of pantaloon bees and beewolves in the car park, close to the electric car charging points.
Not too much further along the path, the water voles have been seen at the pond again today, willow emerald damselflies can be seen in the trees near the pond, and several whitethroats, lesser whitethroats and blackcaps are refueling on blackberries in the North Bushes before continuing their migration south.
Various waders are refueling on the Scrape, too, including green, wood and common sandpipers, greenshanks, spotted redshanks, knots, 100+ dunlins, 100+ black-tailed godwits and several ruffs. There's also a few yellow wagtails among the large numbers of pied wagtails, a few lingering little gulls, and at least 40 avocets still present.
In the reedbed, bitterns, marsh harriers, hobbies, bearded tits and reed warblers are all regularly seen, three otters are being seen most days, and Cetti's warblers are beginning to sing again, while a slow worm was spotted near Island Mere today, and common lizards (another of the 70 species) were seen too.
Common lizard