How To Object
New video footage has captured another wonderful encounter with a hummingbird hawk-moth here at Quarterlands, this time feeding amongst the honeysuckle growing through one of our old hawthorn hedges.
Earlier this summer, we were delighted to record hummingbird hawk-moths in two gardens adjoining the Quarterlands site. Now we have some lovely new video showing one of these extraordinary visitors hovering amongst the honeysuckle, moving rapidly from flower to flower.
For anyone who has never seen one, a hummingbird hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) is quite an extraordinary sight. Its wings beat so rapidly that it can hover almost motionless in front of a flower, extending its long proboscis to reach the nectar while remaining in flight. At first glance, it really can look remarkably like a tiny hummingbird.
A small visitor, but part of a much bigger picture
What makes this latest footage particularly special to us is not simply the moth itself, but where it was feeding.
The honeysuckle grows through an established hawthorn hedge close to the Quarterlands development site, part of the network of mature hedgerows, gardens, fields and vegetation which makes this little corner of the Lagan Valley such a rich habitat for wildlife.
We have written before about the importance of these old hedgerows. They are easy to see simply as boundaries between fields and gardens, but ecologically they are much more than that. They provide food, shelter and movement corridors for insects, birds and mammals, while flowering plants such as honeysuckle add another layer to that habitat.
And sometimes we are fortunate enough to see that relationship happening right in front of us.
The hummingbird hawk-moth does not know where one garden ends and another begins. Wildlife moves through a landscape according to where it can find food, shelter and safe routes. A moth feeding on honeysuckle, a bat following a hedgerow, a hedgehog moving between gardens or migrating birds using a field are all reminders that habitats work as connected landscapes, not isolated parcels of land.
Why recording what we see matters
We also submit our wildlife sightings to CEDaR, the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording, so that what we see locally becomes part of the formal environmental record. When we began this work, one of the things that surprised us most was how little recorded information there seemed to be about the indigenous wildlife we knew was living alongside us. That absence matters. If wildlife has never been formally recorded, it becomes much easier for a development proposal to give the impression that there is little or nothing there to protect. We realised that simply knowing what lived here was not enough. By photographing, filming and submitting sightings to CEDaR, we can help build an evidence base that records the biodiversity of this landscape for the future.Over the past few years, local people have helped us build a much better picture of the wildlife living in and moving through the Quarterlands area. Some sightings are expected. Others, like the hummingbird hawk-moth, arrive as a wonderful surprise.
Photographs and video allow us to do more than simply say that something was seen. They give us a record of what was here, when it was here and, importantly, how it was using the habitat around us.
That is why we continue to encourage people locally to photograph and record the wildlife they encounter.
There is something particularly lovely about this latest video. The moth is spectacular, but the setting is completely ordinary: honeysuckle scrambling through an old hedge.
Perhaps that is the point.
Biodiversity isn’t only found in nature reserves or specially managed habitats. Sometimes it is quietly thriving in the hedge at the bottom of a garden, along an old field boundary or amongst flowers that have been growing in the same place for generations.
The more closely we look at the landscape around Quarterlands, the more reasons we find to value it.
Watch our new footage of the hummingbird hawk-moth feeding on honeysuckle below.