Surprise Moth on the White Buddleia

I fear I am rather scraping the barrel with the quality of these photographs; but, once again, they serve as useful record shots. Our white buddleia has at long last come into its own this year, attracting the occasional Comma, Peacock, Painted Lady and Small Tortoiseshell butterfly, along with good numbers of Red Admiral and Small White. There have been plenty of bees on the higher branches. 

We were sitting outside on Thursday afternoon when a particularly 'fluttery' insect caught my attention and I knew almost instinctively that it was a Hummingbird Hawk-moth, a garden first for us. I am adding the sighting to my home-patch list. The moth was very skittish and hard to photograph. It did not hang around for long, but it was there and we both saw it. 

I last saw one of these beautiful insects here in Suffolk a few years ago. Prior to that, my sightings had been in the western Peloponnese - here. You can read more about the Hummingbird Hawk-moth here on the Butterfly Conservation site.

 

White Buddleia and the Insects it Attracts

Pollen galore: my favourite White Buddleia photo

We inherited a white variety of Buddleia when we moved in to our current home back in 2012, and each year I complain that I wish it was a Black Knight or one of the purple species like B. Davidii that are particularly attractive to butterflies. But for a few short days before the flowers turn to a rusty brown, it looks beautiful. Followers of this blog will know that during the strict lockdown I kept a close eye on some of the plants, including self-seeded ones, in the garden, charting the insects that landed on them. I decided to 'watch' the Buddleia this year, and the photos in this post represent some of my sightings, including the total number of butterfly species seen on the bush. I need to spend more time watching and photographing the bees. And I note we should be dead-heading to allow new inflorescences to form.

 The Comma was the first butterfly to land on the white flowers this year.

I also noticed a couple of Large Whites...

...and quite good numbers of Red Admirals.

We have not seen a Peacock for a few days, but there were one or two about last week. A couple of years years ago I bought a beautiful Peacock butterfly card while we were on holiday in Galloway. When I unwrapped it, it seemed that the writing inside was the wrong way up.

What I have since discovered is that Peacocks often prefer to take an upside-down pose, like the one in my photo below: the image and the writing on the card matched each other after all!