hummingbird hawkmoth

[psummerfield99]

Isaw a hummingbird hawkmoth in my garden on 26/03/05 .Other years I have never seen one before the summer, does anyone know if this would have been a migrant or do they overwinter as a chrysalis?

[Chris How]

This page on the RSPB site says:

Even though the moths successfully breed in the UK, they are not able to survive the winter (in mild winters, small numbers may overwinter).

So I wouldn't be surprised if it overwintered in a shed or garage in the very mild winter.

However, according to this very informative page says that they overwinter as an adult, rather that as a chrysalis.

Did you see it feeding? If so, on what?

[Matthew Thomas]

Please see reply below from Colin Pratt FRES - hope this helps:

This species occasionally survives our local winter by hibernating in the adult stage. The insect's immature stages are thought never to survive. In my 1999 CD on the Sussex butterflies and moths I say that:

"The species arrives in waves chiefly between early June and early November, these influxes from the continent being boosted by home-grown emergences during the autumn. The main summertime landfalls are sometimes preceded by a weaker earlier flight between the second week of March and the third week of April, occasionally during May. However, the adult has been seen in every week of the year except for the first and third weeks of December, and the last three weeks of January."

During this year of 2005 there has been a small migration, as evidenced by more than half a dozen Sussex records so far, and this will almost certainly be the source of your particular specimen.