Humming Bird?

veXual

Apologies if I seem like I'm raving but I'm convinced that a recently seen a humming bird, if anyone could shed any light on this I'd appreciate it.

Lowdown on the location I seen it was at my parents house just outside Athlone. I was sat on the patio outside when I noticed a small bird hovering in front of the flower bed and appearing to place its beak inside one of the flowers hover there for a minute and then dissappear around the corner of the house.

Now this whole event lasted just a few seconds and it seemed to large to be an insect what I seen looks very similar the one in this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hummingbird_Texas.jpg and the reason I say this is because I noticed the black/white feathers around the tail at the time.

Maybe I am gone mad but if anyone has any input I would appreciate it!

Alun

This question crops up here with amazing regularity. It's not a humming bird (we don't have them anywhere in Europe at all, they're native to the Americas only), it's a moth, namely a Humming Bird Hawk Moth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroglossum_stellatarum

veXual

Ah excellent! Thought I had lost it completely. That's exactly what I seen just very coonfusing when you only catch a brief glimpse of it.

Thanks man

Alun

No problem, they're pretty big and manage to fool a lot of people into thinking they're real humming birds.

Mothman

There was a thread about this a month ago
Would you PM details. Date, location with grid ref. (use www.gridreference.ie ) and I'll add it to the MothsIreland database and perhaps put another dot on this map