Country diary: A peachy taste of the exotic … outside the Co-op
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Version 0 of 1. Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire: Hovering among the underwatered petunias, a hummingbird hawk moth – a showstopper in flight and the darling of its family It’s been a summer of surprising urban nature encounters here. Peregrine falcons over Primark, a family of goldcrests in the yew tree of the town graveyard, bouncing around its shadowy branches, and now this? A hummingbird by the Co-op? My common sense catches up with my eyes soon after. This is a hummingbird hawk moth. My first sighting, and here it is feeding on the last few underwatered petunias of the supermarket plant trolley, just a few feet from the main road. Its small, pale-grey face is strangely owl-like. It hovers in a peach blur of 80 wing beats per second, unrolling its long, long proboscis like a fishing line to dip it into the centre of each flower with a delicate, intelligent kind of focus. I am utterly enchanted, grateful for its lingering, until, with a quick turn and a soft thrum, it’s off and away. We can thank our unusually hot summer for the growing numbers of videos posted online by incredulous people like me asking, “what’s THIS?” Strong flyers and skilled at making use of a fair wind, hummingbird hawk moths migrate here from southern Europe, and the hotter our summer, the greater their numbers and the farther north they spread. You’d never spot them resting on a wall or leaf – their folded wings are an easily overlooked dirty brown – but once in flight, they’re a showstopper. The hawk moth family tends to be burdened with a sinister reputation. Too big for comfort, some covered in fake eyes and even skull patterns, they’ve long been seen as harbingers of doom, death and madness, and yet our day-flying, fairy-like hummingbird appears to be the darling of its siblings. Common lore holds that it’s good luck to spot one. There is even a tale that a great swarm of them was sighted by the Allied forces as they crossed the Channel on D-day in 1944, foretelling the end of the war. Shall we take this year’s influx as a sign of a similar boon? Despite the worry of our changing climate, the blessing of these buzzing oracles of hope and luck gladdens my heart. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount |