#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Hummingbird Moth in the Butterfly Weed
Sunday morning, take my time, a great night’s sleep and so necessary for restoration. No rush, quiet house. I take my swim; water is cool and calm. I swim my mile and return to the beach and see my dear friend’s daughter with her son! A treat to run into them in the sun. I tweaked and tweaked my poem for workshop tomorrow, one I drafted a week ago. Then, out into the garden. Frank, home from tennis, has promised to help me finish the shade garden I’ve been working on, which we started from plants my dear friend gave me from her garden when she moved. Frank puts up the fence with his post hole digger while I finish raking and planting and transplanting ferns I take from the mud of the wetlands. The hose won’t reach, so I hand water and in the process tweak my back again. So Frank cheerfully helps me finish anything requiring digging or bending, and it’s done! We love it. Now, I feel very satisfied with all the new plantings. Then, I must water. In the vegetable garden the rabbits have wreaked havoc, but I decide not to stress. We’ll find a solution next year. And I take some pictures of what I assume are hummingbirds in the bee balm, but they are not. I learn they are hummingbird moths. Pollinators that look like the birds. I welcome them with their flitting and buzzing. I am sorry to learn of the death of Edna O’Brien, Irish novelist, 93 years old. And coincidentally, I have been listening to her Country Girls trilogy for the past three weeks for the first time. In audible she recorded these herself, so I have been listening to her voice reading these wonderful novels. The loss seems acute when I am reading and marveling at her novels. There’s plenty more to read of hers. Rain has started and the windows are wide open, a lovely time to go to sleep sound. Wave home soon to fill the house again.
Hummingbird moths, like the hummingbirds they mimic, are adept at hovering and moving side-to-side or backward with helicopter-like precision. Although the body of a hummingbird moth takes on the cylindrical, barrel-chested proportions of a hummingbird, it is typically not as long. Hummingbird moths reach 1 to 2.5 inches (2.5 to 6 centimeters) at maturity, while hummingbirds are usually 3 to 4 inches (8 to 10 centimeters) in length. You're also likely to spot a hummingbird moth's six legs dangling as they hover, while a hummingbird will tuck its pair of slender legs into its downy belly feathers as it sups.
https://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/hummingbird-moth.htm