It was dusk when my wife and I arrived home
last April 14th. We had spent the day in Malibu at the annual
Chumash Day Pow Wow and, after a day of driving, drums, and visiting with
friends, we were tired.
That’s why I first thought what I was
seeing was an illusion, a trick of eye or mind. My wife had opened her door,
and when I looked past her toward our blossoming Pride of Madeira bush, there
was an unfamiliar movement.
“Honey, look over there. What is that?”
“What?”
“Just watch. I’m sure I saw something, and
it was strange.”
“Oh – oh, my! I see it, but I don’t know
what it is, either.”
Something flitted from flower to flower,
moving quickly and then hovering just like a hummingbird, except that it wasn’t
a hummingbird. The longer we watched, the more fascinated we became. There wasn’t
just one of the strange creatures, there were half a dozen, maybe more.
“They’re moths,” I said. “Moths like
hummingbirds. Hummingmoths?”
“Listen. Can you hear them? They even sound
like hummingbirds!”
I couldn’t hear them from where I sat, but
I heard them later as I stood there with my camera, trying desperately to
capture images of the strange, fascinating insects. They were hard as hell to
shoot. I normally shoot in Aperture Priority mode so that I can control the
depth of field, letting the camera choose shutter speed and ISO unless there’s
a need for me to take over and do it myself. In this case, none of my normal
settings were working. I put the external flash on my camera, switched on the
autofocus, turned the dial to full Automatic mode, aimed, and prayed.
These hummingbird-moths were fast, and they
were shy. They didn’t like bright light, and they did not like me being close
enough to get a decent shot. I had to wait, frozen in place, and watch.
Occasionally, one would fly near my ear or hover nearby. They did, indeed,
sound like hummingbirds.
Finally, the moths moved on. Praying that I’d
gotten at least a few decent captures, I sat down at the computer to develop
the photos and to try and find out just what the heck we’d seen.
What we saw that evening were White-lined
Sphinx Moths, Hyles lineata, also
known as Hummingbird Moths for obvious reasons, and as Hawk Moths, because of
the way they fly, raptor-like, from one plant to another.
The sphinx moths became a photographic
obsession for the month that they were here, but despite trying various lenses
and settings, I never got any better images than the ones I captured that first
night using the 18-135mm commercial-grade Canon zoom lens and shooting in fully
automatic mode.
Now, as we move into winter, I look forward
to the eventual coming of spring, and the return of the sphinx moths.
Anna's Hummingbird (right) and White-lined Sphinx Moth (below), both dining on the Pride of Madeira flowers within a few hours of each other. I tried putting the images side-by-side, but Blogspot wouldn't let me.
More images. Right-click on them to open in a new tab, where you can enlarge the pictures and check out details like the super-long proboscis. For more information, check out this link:
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