‘Grey lump with orange wings’: migrating moth descends on UK gardens

Boom in hummingbird hawk-moth sightings put down to hot weather, strong winds and food scarcity in Europe

He had just sat down to dinner in the garden when a speedy visitor whizzed by – a “grey lump with orange wings”, recalled Luke Burstow, from Sussex. It was a hummingbird hawk-moth, a flying insect that migrates to the UK from continental Europe and north Africa.

“I was like: ‘Wow!’,” said the software project manager. “I didn’t even know they existed.”