Last Saturday night I did some mothing. Our adult daughter joined me for the caterpillar hunt using blacklight flashlights. I also set up a white sheet with both a reptile heat lamp (in lieu of a mercury vapor light) and a LED blacklight. All the identifications are based on iNaturalist submissions.
Caterpillars
In terms of caterpillars, our efforts did not yield very many observations. It may still be a bit before caterpillar attrition from bird predation eases. Thanks to our daughter, the main exception was finding four Hummingbird Moth caterpillars on arrow wood viburnum. These are in the sphinx family and have the distinctive tail.
Moths
The highlight of the mothing sheet was having several Harnessed Tiger Moth visit. Apparently it is a fairly common moth but it was a first here… they are so striking!
I managed to get up close and personal with a couple of moths…
however, photos on the sheet tend to look like moth mug shots:
Common Gray Moth
Photos by Randy Litchfield unless otherwise noted
© Randy Litchfield, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)
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