What’s this pink stuff that fell from my window? Readers’ nature queries

I found some pink stuff on the floor that had dropped from my open Velux window. It looks like something that was regurgitated by a bird or animal. It was 35mm long and very light.
Vincent Devlin
Dublin

A month ago Helen Lawless of Mountaineering Ireland sent photographs of precisely similar stuff, which she found on two mountains 30km apart (St Luke’s, in the Mourne Mountains, and Slieve Gullion, in south Armagh), which suggests regurgitation by a bird. But what was it eating?

Eyes on nature: the elephant hawkmoth that Robert Thompson found on his driveway, in Co Down

I found the insect in my photograph on my driveway recently. Just after I took the picture a robin landed and devoured it.
Robert Thompson
Saintfield, Co Down

It is the beautiful, native elephant hawkmoth, so-called because of the trunk-like snout of the caterpillar.

Eyes on nature: one of the spotted flycatchers in Michael Brogan’s garden

What a pleasure to watch the spotted flycatchers in our garden. They seem to be able to retain a fly in the beak while continuing to catch more.
Michael Brogan
Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo