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

Boom in migrating 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.”

Burstow is one of many UK wildlife watchers who have described seeing the moth on social media lately. “This made my day,” wrote one Reddit user after their sighting.

Butterfly and moth experts told the Guardian that 2026 could be a bumper year for hummingbird hawk-moths in the UK after a boom in sightings during recent weeks. Hot weather and strong winds appear to have brought many of the insects here from more southerly climes.

Burstow, who, along with his wife, spied the hummingbird hawk-moth enjoying buddleia flowers on 30 June, said: “It was just so different to everything else you normally see.” After quickly Googling the species, Burstow ran inside to grab his camera and managed to take some photos of the creature. He marvelled at how, even with a very fast shutter speed, the moth’s wings – which beat roughly 80 times per second – still appeared slightly blurry in his photos.

“We’ve had a big increase in sightings and inquiries about the hummingbird hawk-moth sent to us this year,” said Richard Austin, a recording schemes officer at the charity Butterfly Conservation. “We expect it is going to be a great summer for them.” Austin cautioned, however, that it was too early to compare their numbers with previous years.

Hummingbird hawk-moths may be spotted all around the UK, including in Northern Ireland and even northern Scotland. Warm southerly winds associated with recent heatwaves could have helped bring high numbers of the moths to the UK, said Richard Harrington, an honorary fellow of the Royal Entomological Society. “It may also be that their food plants are drying out in their Mediterranean breeding areas,” he added.

Sunny weather in the UK has perhaps encouraged people to spend more time than usual in their gardens, raising the chances that they will spot one of the moths, said Ray Barnett, a council member at the British Entomological and Natural History Society. “I’m in Bristol and there’s lots of people recording it locally,” he said.

There’s a chance the hummingbird hawk-moths could stick around, should the UK continue to experience milder winters due to global warming, Barnett added.

Hibernating adults that make it through the British winter may go on to reproduce in the UK on a regular basis. Hummingbird hawk-moth larvae feed on plants including lady’s bedstraw and hedge bedstraw, which are common wildflowers in the UK.

“If these weather patterns continue, then [the moth] is going to survive winters regularly,” said Barnett. “It’s almost becoming a resident species rather than a purely migratory species.”