Stories of bees and bugs

Scan to see more HUMMINGBIRD HAWK-MOTH Sitting in a garden one high summer late afternoon, you see something you think is a bumblebee, until you realize it’s hovering. It zips diagonally to a flower then retreats backwards as quickly. Your brain tells you it’s a hummingbird, but it can’t be: wrong continent and no beak. In fact, it’s one of our most exotic day-flying moths – the hummingbird hawk-moth. At rest it’s fairly unremarkable, a uniform grey-brown colour from above. In flight, however, things are different; as the wings beat – at around 85 beats per second, reaching speeds of up to 12 mph – the orange hindwing and underneath of the forewing are visible. Its wings allow it to fly in any direction and hold a static position. It also feeds…

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The Simple Things (Digital) - 1 Issue, August 2024

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