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Post by marchesarosa on Jul 8, 2011 18:21:36 GMT 1
Yesterday I saw a strange and fascinating sight that mystified me. I had no idea what I was looking at. I saw a very large insect with a long black proboscis, apparently spherical with pinkish body and reddish wings that were rotating so fast they were a blur. It was the size of a large bumble bee. The insect, which I could only describe to myself as like a small hummingbird was sipping nectar via its long proboscis while hovering stationary close to the valerian flowers that have seeded themselves round my garden. I watched it amazed and tried to follow it when flew off but it had disappeared. I tried describing it to a friend of mine just now and he had no idea what I had seen either. So I did a google search with keywords "insect black proboscis pink body humming bird hovering sipping nectar" and what was the first link that came up? This! Caught in midflight with wings clearly visible rather than the red spherical blur I had seen. Lovely! Hummingbird Hawkmoth an insect that looks like a bird. www.suite101.com/content/hummingbird-hawk-moth-a11625#ixzz1RXHXFTJPIsn't the internet wonderful? Instant gratification of curiosity! www.suite101.com/content/hummingbird-hawk-moth-a11625
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Post by eamonnshute on Jul 8, 2011 18:40:56 GMT 1
My favourite insect! I occasionally get them in my garden - they are very fond of Abelia grandiflora. They have become much more common in recent years.
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Post by marchesarosa on Jul 8, 2011 21:54:57 GMT 1
It's my favorite insect now, too, Eamonn!
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Post by principled on Jul 9, 2011 8:27:06 GMT 1
Marchesa Nature is always full of surprises and this is a wonderful example. I've never seen this particular moth and wonder if its energy consumption is as high as that of a hummingbird? When I first went to central Canada about six years ago I was amazed to see hummingbirds (in this case ruby-throated hummingbird) feeding on sugar water in many people's gardens. I still find it difficult to imagine how such small birds that flap their wings up to 1000times/min can fly such vast migration distances. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0003901P
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Post by marchesarosa on Jul 9, 2011 9:23:29 GMT 1
There are lots of videos on YouTube of this moth.
Here is one that is closest to how I experienced my sighting. I was looking down on the little beastie with the pink valerian flowers below it so it appeared to me more pink/red than it actually is.
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Post by marchesarosa on Aug 7, 2013 8:55:36 GMT 1
The other day I saw this lovely creature in my Leeds back garden. The beautiful indentations on its wings struck me and I tried hard to remember them so that I could identify the species from a google image later on. I found that it is called the Comma butterfly and is supposedly endangered in the UK - at least it appears on a BBC gallery of endangered butterflies here www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10746948
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Post by marchesarosa on Aug 7, 2013 9:12:23 GMT 1
The other day I read a debunking of the popular environmentalist canard that butterflies are victims of climate change and that their range is moving steadily higher in both altitude and latitude. The research on which this claim is based is very dodgy indeed. It arises from this piece of work, Dr. Camille Parmesan’s 1996 seminal "Edith’s Checkerspot" butterfly paper titled “Species and Climate Range” that became the model for future peer-reviewed papers that blamed climate change for driving species northward and upward and causing species extinctions. The debunking amounts to the fact that NO observations of the purported northward migration were made in a more northerly locations than the usual range. What had happened is this. The butterfly in question had lost some of its southern range because of habitat destruction and this meant observations were therefore restricted to the northern reaches of its range. This was SPUN (no other word for it) as evidence that the species was moving "northwards". No observations were however made of the creature in more northern areas outside its normal range. Clever, these activist environmentlists, eh? Read about the scam here wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/14/fabricating-climate-doom-part-1-parmesans-butterfly-effect/#more-89774and this fascinating follow-up wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/06/fabricating-climate-doom-part-2-hijacking-conservation-success-in-the-uk-to-build-consensus/
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Post by marchesarosa on Aug 7, 2013 9:19:04 GMT 1
Butterflies are however instant victims of bad weather, let there be no doubt about that.
The recent bad winters and cold springs have decimated British butterflies as we must all be aware. Intensive farming and pesticide use must play a part too.
Conservation activists should be seeking the causes for the dearth of butterflies in human population growth, farming practices and other micro-environmental variables not the lazy,propagandistic, catch-all bugbear of "climate change".
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Post by marchesarosa on Aug 25, 2013 8:52:36 GMT 1
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Post by marchesarosa on Aug 25, 2013 8:57:18 GMT 1
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 20, 2014 17:24:39 GMT 1
I saw this in my garden yesterday and again today. I have never seen one before. It is called the Cinnabar Moth.
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 20, 2014 17:30:51 GMT 1
My garden has been full of bees the last few weeks. So pleased to see them all. They are particularly attracted to the tiny insignificant flowers on my cotoneaster trees and if you stand next to the trees you can hear a loud concerted hum!. They are little furry fellows with black rear ends with a little silver patch and little ginger coloured waistcoats. I now know what "the bee loud glade" sounds like. The trees are smothered in red berries in autumn but in the Spring the flowers are so insignificant that you hardly notice them. I was mystified at first why the bees were were attracted to the trees in such large numbers and then I noticed the tiny spherical pink flowers. What kind of bee do you think they are?
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Post by fascinating on Jun 22, 2014 7:52:13 GMT 1
I don't know the answer to your question but congratulations on these top-notch photos. Do you use an extension tube to enable those close-ups?
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Post by jean on Jun 22, 2014 20:30:36 GMT 1
That doesn't look like a cotoneaster to me.
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 23, 2014 12:23:16 GMT 1
It is clover, jean. The photo is not mine. The bee is, however, the type that is currently buzzing around in great abundance in my garden, I'm pleased to report.
Principled, I am no photographer! The pics are courtesy of a google search.
I have been trying unsuccessfully to find the name of a plant I bought recently in a local festival in the park that backs on to my house. I asked the vendor what it was but he didn't know! I have never seen this plant before.
I can usually find a google image to match any search description I enter without difficulty but not this time. Perhaps one of you know what the name of this plant is from my description?
The plant's form - its leaves and stem, are like that of the iris with flat sword-like leaves overlapping at the flattened base and a single sturdy stem with clusters of little yellow flowers occurring on alternate sides up the stem just like the iris.
The flowers, however, are not at all iris-like. They are like small primroses and they close up at night. The whole plant is about 18" tall.
Any clues, please?
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