Raspberry Clearwing

Raspberry Clearwing is a recent colonist to the UK and was actually first discovered, in 2007, in South Cambridgeshire. Despite there being records elsewhere in recent years such as Lincs, Beds and Norfolk all of the VC29 records came from south of Cambridge City. So I didn't feel there was much prospect of getting it here and this probably affected by limited attempts with the HYL lure in previous years. 

Negative results earlier in July were quickly forgotten when Jon Heath let me know he had one in north Cambridge. Within a few minutes of putting the lure out one arrived and crawled over the lure. Some poor attempts at netting it caused it to escape though, which was somewhat annoying. Two days later the weather was suitable again and I tried at the same time of day - around 1700. This time two individuals came in and were safely netted and photographed. It goes without saying that they are superb and they are my second new clearwing this year.

Raspberry Clearwing Pennisettia hylaeiformis