June 22, 2014
Okay, maybe it wasn't so late night. Not even 11:30. As I mentioned in my previous post, as I was in the process of making tonight's blog post I happened to go out on the porch where the light was on, and found a plethora of moths. I didn't want to abandon all of the things I had already chosen for the blog today, and I didn't want the post to be six miles long with the addition of a slew of moths, and I didn't want to just not post the moths. And because it was before midnight, I couldn't just make the moths the next day's post. So, I am doing a separate moth post. Mostly pictures, not much commentary.
Just feast your eyes on these lovely Lepidoptera!
It's crowded on the porch.
Recognize this one? And it's got a friend!
This picture does not do this moth justice. It was a shiny, pearlescent white. I couldn't get any closer, because it was too high.
This was today's Backyard Bug of the Day. At first it was cooperative...
Then it started flying around, then landing and fluttering like mad.
I have three hypotheses about the fluttering: 1) It was trying to get warm. 2) It was looking for a mate, and this was either a mating dance, or a way to spread pheremones in the air. 3) It was trying to be intimidating and get me to leave it alone. Which I eventually did, because I couldn't get a picture of its markings with it fluttering around, and when it would stop, the nanosecond I got it in focus, it would flit and flutter again.
I tried a few more times...
Eventually it settled on the side of the light fixture, and, amazingly, let me get close to take pictures.
Really close.
This isn't even all the moths that were out there tonight, but it's a good sampling at least of the ones I could get close to with the camera. By the way, the new bug book I bought is inadequate in the area of moth identification.
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