My friend squealed and leapt out of the deckchair, nearly spilling her glass of rosé. “What is this thing?” she exclaimed. In the dusky twilight of our campsite we could just see a dark insect circling us. From this fluttering creature came a deep resonant buzz, a bass pulse worthy of any nightclub.
Once over the surprise I realised we were listening to the unmistakable wing vibration of the hummingbird hawk moth. I’d seen it often in daylight, on honeysuckle, hovering in its exotic birdlike way at a flower, probing its long proboscis deep into nectar.
By dark it was a different creature, the gentle hum of its fast wings dramatically amplified by darkness and by being just a few centimetres from my ear.
I looked up, and saw the dusk skyscape full of life. Just above our heads there were several hundred moths and above them wheeled at least 20 bats. I could make out the flitting delicate shape of the tiny common pipistrelle on a mission to eat thousands of insects. Then, swooping lower, there was the larger brown long-eared bat, with its Halloween silhouette.
My children were playing with friends in the fading light, enjoying campsite life free from boring routines like bedtime, and growing grubbier and more feral by the moment. I called them over, knowing I’d roughly five seconds to capture their interest. The hummingbird hawk moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) performed on cue, making them giggle and gasp at the noise.
After it flew on I asked them to keep listening. I was keen to test one of those natural history “facts” – that children can hear bats unaided. My four-year-old daughter told me of a squeaky chattering, she said it was like a mouse talking. It was probably the pipistrelle; the long-eared bats are known as whispering bats since their calls are so quiet.
We weren’t far from home, but away from four walls and all the restrictions of normal life we had discovered the otherworld of night, full of strange buzzing and squeaking – and children who didn’t need to go to bed.
Twitter: @Kateblincoe
