A STRAW.....STANDARD EQUIPMENT

[doccash]

These moths have always interested me. This one getting a drink at the windmill tank.

 

[Mike Armstrong]

If that's a day-flying moth, it's what we call a "hawk moth" in California. They compete with the hummingbirds and sometimes you see one heck of a "dogfight"!

One thing that amuses me about having a "butterfly and hummingbird garden" is that there is a constant aerial battle going on as long as the sun shines: butterflies being chased by bees, skippers chasing each other and everything else, butterflies and moths fighting with each other and with hummingbirds, and hummers fighting each other for feeders and flowers and being chased by bees and skippers. Makes your head spin!

 

[doccash]

Mike, you are spot on about all the drama going on in the flower patch! Politics is almost the same. :mrgreen: Dr.C

 

[Rick Courtright]

Mike, you are spot on about all the drama going on in the flower patch! Politics is almost the same. :mrgreen: Dr.C

Hi,

Great picture! And amen to the sentiments on drama, Doc and Mike! Nature's hardly altruistic. My back porch sounds like Parliament in full debate in that one country where the members get in regular fist fights, every morning!

English sparrows feed at the neighbors' house but stay in my bushes jabbering at everyone. Scrub jays are impatient for some peanuts, which they don't share well--they'll even bang on the window if there's not a cat staring at 'em from the inside.

And Harry always has something to say! Harry's the resident "big" (well...) male hummingbird who keeps the other more transient hummers from "his" feeders and sometimes buzzes me for drill, won't let the jays near the peanuts if he got up on the wrong side of the nest that morning, and has the sparrows pretty well buffaloed, too!

Quite entertaining! We don't get many of those big moths, but I can imagine it being even more fun if they got in it w/ Harry...

Rick C