What do you think this is?

This beautiful creature turned up on my friends towel in her garden and, not knowing what it was, she thought of my son who is absolutely passionate about animals and insects. We turned up at her house and my son instantly identified it as a moth but we weren't sure what type of moth it was. He thought it was a vampire moth so we googled that and actually it looks very similar!

However, we discovered that it is actually a poplar hawk moth. We didn't think it was very well as it wasn't flying and didn't have much movement so whilst researching how we could help it my son homed it in his butterfly house!

My son's passion of the natural world is a reminder to me how far removed from the world we often are. When we go for walks he sees and hears things that I don't tend to notice. But through him I am re-learning to be more aware of my surroundings and remember how much pleasure one can get simply by watching, listening and feeling all that is natural in this world.

Whilst my son is young in years, I am learning so much because of his passion and I feel that our journey of discovery has only just started.