Small victories (a new pollinator in the garden!)

I count any new species I see on the wildlife patch a small victory. The garden is in a great location as it is, surrounded by agricultural land which has a new wildflower margin every year, as well as woodlands and chalk grassland. So before the project we usually saw lots of honey bees and lots of vanessid butterflies, which take full advantage of all the stinging nettles, thistles, and buddleja.

And since using plants to attract pollinators I've seen a variety of other bees and butterflies over the last 3 years, and even more solitary bees now we have nest boxes for them, but yesterday was an amazing surprise, we had a hummingbird hawkmoth! It was feeding on the red valerian and I only had my phone so the pictures aren't great quality but hopefully it will visit again! So beautiful and really quite loud - like a miniature bird fluttering it's wings.

You may have to look hard to find it in some of the pictures but I wanted to upload all of them :)

For more info on hummingbird hawkmoths: 
http://butterfly-conservation.org/51-1087/humming-bird-hawk-moth.html

And a proper photo (by Umberto Salvagnin)