A Visit From Hemaris Thysbe

A really chance photo of a clearwing hummingbird moth leaving one phlox flower and headed for another, curling in its proboscis on the way.

I took these photos with my smartphone, and really wish I’d had my DSLR out in the back yard for the morning and I may have gotten a clearer photo of its wings. I am surprised I caught this with my phone—it’s not all that fast and because of the angle of light I couldn’t really even see what the moth was doing, just shot off several and then looked later. What luck!

Clearwing hummingbird moths look less like a moth than a hummingbird. They visited my phlox long before humminbirds did when I first moved to this house, and for the longest time I thought they were a type of hummingbird until I checked my birding guidebook. Really, because I’d never seen anything about a creature like this, I thought I’d discovered a brand new species.

Someday I’ll have to name a character or a cat Hemaris Thysbe.

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