Pictorial life of a Hummingbird Hawkmoth

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In late July two thousand and six, my wife and I were strolling back from the bird hide at the RSPB Inner Marsh Farm, Burton. When we spotted that wonderful creature, the Hummingbird Hawkmoth, dashing around the Bedstraw flowers alongside a stone wall. My wife had the camera and took the only picture, although it’s a poor picture one can make out the moth was actualy laying an egg. When I realised what it was doing I imediately searched the place and discovered a lovely shiny green egg. I carefully snipped off the flower stem with the egg attached and chased after the moth to collect four other eggs that I saw it lay. Although we searched all the plants around we couldn’t find any more eggs. I carefully carried these treasures back to the car and we drove home. In the seconed picture you can see the emerald green egg at the top of the stem.

Within five days the eggs hatched and after the cattapillars had eaten their egg shells they started eating the fine hairs on the plant beneath the flowers. As they grew they progressed onto eating the flower itself and from there they consumed the flowers, leaves and stems of the plant.

The strange thing is although they all hatched almost together they grew up in different sizes

!http:/Although these caterpillars lived exclusively on the Bedstraw plant, they would have also have consumed a plant called, “Madder” and possibly the Verbena family.
/media.growsonyou.com/photos/blog_photo/image/28151/main/j.jpg!

The largest catterpillar started changing colour and began to wander off in serch of a nesting site. The best place I thought was to house them in the old Goldfish tank where they could bury themselves in the potting mix and peat that I had filled to about three inches at the bottom.

After seeking advice on the net I was advised to place them in seperate jars so that they didn’t damage each other when digging in the soil. This turned out to be a great idea because I was able to photograph them constructing their cocoon and change into a christlis

Over the weeks the pupae started changing color and the darker they got the nearer they become to emerging

On emergence the moth crawls up to a place where it can hang on and where it can allow the wings to expand.

To identify each moth I dabbed a colored spot on the thorax

After the four moths emerged I took many pictures before they were released into the garden

The moths fed on the verbena flowers and other flowers in the greenhouse.

• 3 Dec, 2009
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