21st June 2009 - daytime

A stunning couple of hours in the garden this afternoon brought two new species of clearwing and a fly-through Hummingbird Hawkmoth - the first here for 3 years. Unfortunately this visit was too brief for me to snatch any photos.

I decided to put out lures for Red-tipped and Orange-tailed Clearwings as both have been reported in Cambridgeshire recently. The VES lure worked within about 20 minutes with an Orange-tailed appearing briefly followed by another or the same about 10 minutes later but neither giving me a chance to pot them up. The FOR lure for Red-tipped seemed to have no effect until after over two hours a single moth appeared and lingered long enough for me to net it. Five minutes later an Orange-tailed appeared at the other lure and this time I managed to catch it.

These appear to be quite significant catches as neither moth has been recorded here since the 1940s!

Orange-tailed Clearwing:

Red-tipped Clearwing: