The Observation Deck

Do you know where I can buy that beautiful rug above?

Jimmy, everyone knows you're crazy. But the best crazy you got dude, is crazy good camera skills.

Beautiful pics.

Out of the garden! Is that flower big enough or what?!

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Wow! use the tilt control and make it into a snazzy chapeau!

Hi all--

Happy Monday, or Tuesday---

Yesterday I was scrambling eggs when the kids came in yelling, "Daddy says come into the front yard right away!" He was out there trimming bushes. When we got outside, we saw a blur of wings, and a tiny darting motion, some creature so small that I assumed it was an insect, it was about as big as a bumble bee. And then we saw the beak. I've seen humming birds before but I've never seen one this small. Or I guess maybe I have, but I didn't know what I was seeing. The kids held their breath and watched and were perfectly still for longer than I've ever seen them.

We took some pictures, I don't think they really capture the feeling of looking at this miraculous little creature, but here they are. The first one is to try to give you an idea of its size. The whole experience lasted for about two minutes.

Betsy

That's a Hummingbird moth.

Hi Joe,

Thanks. After you posted that I studied my pictures and noticed the antennae coming from the head of the creature. My son looked it up and said "hummingbird moths" are only in China! Then we looked it up again and found out there are four North American species, and found some online that looked just like the one we saw, they looked like they were trying to get nectar from the same flowers we have out front. (I think they're called phlox.)

A friend sent me a link to pictures taken by a family that set up a camera to take pictures of an actual humming bird's nest, to show me the difference, in case I missed the antennae which I kind of did. I also noticed that the body of the one we saw kind of looked like a bee, but up by its head, it looked like feathers.

Anyway, I'll post the link, these are cool pictures.

http://community-2.webtv.net/Velpics/HUM/index.html

Betsy

Urban Deer on the hill overlooking Sloane Subway!

Rhonda loje wrote:

Urban Deer on the hill overlooking Sloane Subway!

Rhonda

Only because you were so fast in telling me my butterfly was a moth.

Deer, would be under the Fauna thread, not the Flora.

But they are beautiful, and nice.

Thanks for sharing.

peace

Obviously I know more about moths and butterflies than I do about flora and fauna...and categories. It's the bug collection I had in 6th grade.

Hi Rhonda,

I've decided to join you in continuing to abuse the Flora thread-- one because I couldn't find the Fauna thread, and two, because I posted what I thought was a hummingbird here. Then it was a moth. Then it was a deer. Now I've found another moth, and I know this one is a moth, so I want it to keep the other moth company (and the deer) and I'm hoping Joe Ott will come back on and tell me what kind of moth it is.

Try a google image search for white-lined sphinx moth.

Hi Joe,

I'll do that. I love the name sphinx-moth. It reminds me of how quietly it was sitting there until we bothered it. My son grabbed his camera and took a better picture of the "evil eye" picture than I did, if we can find the cable to connect the camera to the computer, I'll post that too.

Thanks.

Betsy

Jim,

The sphinx moth could have been a leaf. Kinda looks like a flower. Then it would be in the right thread. As Meg pointed out, that moth is sitting on Flora. Fauna on the Flora.

On the left is iphoto picture of an Iris after a spring rain in my yard. On the right, it has been "percolated."


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Love the percolation!

Large quantities of cheap beer has the same effect