Wed, Jul 12, 2017

We’ve moved to the beautiful Haines Hitch-Up RV Park and boy is it nice.  A five star park if I’ve ever seen one.

And guess what flew into the local garden?  A hummingbird moth!

I’ve seen pictures before but never in real life.  So I ran for my Nikon 800 and 200 f2 lens only to learn that this lens isn’t one that has a close focus.  Slaps forehead (duh).  Then back to the rig to grab my 85mm lens. [Edit: I had the focus range limited to 5m – infinity. Slaps forehand again.]

They fly and move just like hummingbirds. Like them, they can remain suspended in the air in front of a flower while they unfurl their long tongues and insert them in flowers to sip their nectar.

I always thought they were hummers that look like moths but they are moths that look like hummers.  You know, they start life as caterpillars.  I learn something new every day (sadly, I forget something every day too).

These critters are small, half the size of a hummer, so it’s not like I have a full frame of one.  This is heavily cropped and was shot at ISO 400, 1/4000 sec and f 2.0.

Another view.