www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

For the past 4 years I have spotted Narrow-Bordered Bee Hawk moths. The areas I have found them in are not their typical habitats (improved grassland with wildflower edge bordering mixed forest, forest edge near field and cutover bog, although the last seems a better habitat but lacks its foodplant). Now the thing about the bee hawks is that the areas they have been found in, have no scabious of any kind anywhere nearby or in a mile more radius. I have only ever seen one at a time, in 2009 I saw 3, in 2007, 2010 was one and didn't see one in 2008.

I have been chatting with several people and we are thinking these bee hawks could be migrating or vagrants from somewhere else. All these were found in the North east of county Down (in the area of the red rectangle):
Anyone know if they could travel far? The only recent known adults were found this year at Murlough NNR (the green dot, south east on the map) as no one is quite sure what is happening with this species in the areas I found them or why they were there as this species isn't known to be migratory. Anyone know what they could be doing? I have not found one this year yet, but it was early June when I found them previous times.