Although it looks good on the egg cartons in the moth trap I hoped for a few photos with a better background. On a cool early morning the moth was happy to sit on my warm hands.
I brought it into the dining room for a brief photo shoot, first trying a paeony, Bowl of Beauty.
The moth found it a bit difficult to maintain a secure foothold so I tried a foxglove.
The moth was getting a bit bored by this stage and was revving up its flight muscles to get them warm. You can see the wings are blurred even with the high-speed flash.
Eventually it flew off through the French doors to hide in the garden, perhaps by chance, or not, choosing a hiding place in the pink border with a matching pink and green background.
Here is a comparison between the Small Elephant Hawk-moth I caught a few weeks ago (L) and the Elephant Hawk-moth (R). Not to scale as the small one is about 3/4 size.
Elephant Hawk-moths are fairly common and widespread. They fly at dusk so I'll keep an eye on the viper's bugloss and see if I can spot one without using the light trap.
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