I WAS inspired to start moth trapping ten years ago after a neighbour called me over to admire a Lime Hawkmoth perched on his gatepost. Big, streamlined, intricately coloured hawkmoths have been my favourites ever since.

In our garden, Poplar Hawkmoths occur regularly, at rest their hind wings bizarrely projecting in front of their forewings.

Elephant and Small Elephant Hawkmoths, vivid in pink and green, appear in my trap occasionally and one year I found three Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillars on garden willowherbs, three-inch monsters with false eyes and the ability to inflate their heads and look threateningly like small snakes, enough to deter most predators.

A Hummingbird Hawkmoth, a species I had only previously seen in France and Spain, zoomed through one afternoon and vanished as quickly as it had arrived.

To see other species I have had to travel further south and a highlight of a trip to the Somerset Levels in May was an Eyed Hawkmoth (pictured) a creature I have been waiting years to see. They are supposed to occur fairly commonly in Yorkshire but apparently not in Otley.

It clung to my finger, giving me glimpses of the blue and black roundels on its hind wings that give it its name and vibrating its wings faster and faster before leaping into the air and zooming away.

Also down south, I have seen the least colourful of the family, the Pine Hawkmoth, in the New Forest and huge Privet Hawkmoths in Norfolk.

Of the nine species resident in Britain I have never seen either of the two Bee Hawkmoths, now much decreased and mainly restricted to southern counties.

To have a chance of seeing other species which are just vagrants to Britain it is necessary to travel even further south, into Europe. On a visit to my brother, then living in the south of France, I found a magnificent Death’s Head Hawkmoth perched next to a wall light. It brings with it the reputation of foretelling death in a house if found inside so perhaps it was fortunate that neither my brother nor his wife had ever seen one.

He did send me a photo of another monster, a Convolvulus Hawkmoth, which turned up when they were helping a friend with his grape harvest.

As to the Lime Hawkmoth which sparked my interest, I have never seen another!

wharfedale-nats.org.uk