At Last!

 I've often lamented the fact that Lichfield, a city whose parks and avenues are blessed with a glorious abundance of lime trees (currently in flower and smelling lovely), seems strangely devoid of any lime hawk moths. I seldom pass a lime tree at this time of year without checking out the trunk for newly emerged hawk moths, but I've never seen one here. Or rather I had never seen one – until yesterday, when I was walking with my cousin in the cathedral close, and suddenly, out of the blue, she spotted one, resting on a fence!  An exciting moment, and wholly unexpected, given my dismal record so far. It was a fine specimen, and obligingly stayed still while I took its photograph (above). So there are lime hawks in Lichfield after all – another reason to love the place...
  Meanwhile, my fancy birdsong identification app came up with a rogue reading the other day. Hearing a lusty song as I walked in the park, and not being able to see its source, I turned my phone towards the sound, and, after long deliberation, the app delivered its verdict: Bewick's Wren, a long-tailed wren native to western parts of North America and singularly ill equipped to fly across the Atlantic. Apparently the bird was named by Audubon in honour of his friend, the great engraver Thomas Bewick. My bird, I imagine, was the common or garden Eurasian Wren, which glories in the binomial Troglodytes troglodytes.