Butterflies and a hummingbird moth at Mt. Airy Forest...

I visited Mt. Airy Forest in Cincinnati last week. It's the first time I've been there since I was a kid. It's a lovely park with a beautiful arboretum. I started my visit at the treehouse and then headed over to the arboretum. Butterflies were everywhere, and a Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird moth made an appearance too...

A Cabbage White butterfly (Pieris rapae) sips nectar in the midday sun at the Mt. Airy Forest arboretum.

From a distance, Cabbage Whites may appear a bit dull, but up close they have beautiful wings decorated in subtle shades of yellow on white. Their eyes sparkle in soft tones of turquoise and green. The dark spots on their wings make it easy to identify them. Cabbage Whites are one of our most recognizable and common butterflies. You can find them just about anywhere, and they fly both early and late in the season. Introduced from Europe around 1860, they have spread to most of North America. Because of their long flying season and their preference of cultivated garden plants (i.e., cabbages, mustards, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and radishes) as their host plants, they are often considered garden pests. (Source: "Butterflies of Ohio," by Jaret C. Daniels.)

A Cabbage White Butterfly takes flight. 
Although Cabbage Whites are slower moving than other butterflies, they still take to the wing at the wrong time when being photographed... 

A Cabbage White butterfly uses its proboscis to sip nectar.  

Recent studies at Clemson University in South Carolina show that a butterfly's proboscis is a "marvel of microfluidic design." Students and scientists there are studying the butterfly's feeding tube to learn more about micro-fluidity (the precise management of small amounts of fluid). They hope to create a microfluidic device to improve designs in products ranging from inkjet printers to "lab-on-a-chip" medical technologies. Previously, science assumed the proboscis worked like a drinking straw, but researchers at Clemson have found proboscis functionality is much more complex, and that the proboscis has "structures and properties that combine sponge-like capillary action with straw-like sucking." (Source: the Clemson University web site, here.)

Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth (Hemaris diffnis) at Mt. Airy Forest.

In our area there are two types of hummingbird moths. This fellow is a Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth (Hemaris diffinis). The other type is a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe). The two look a lot a like, but Snowberries are smaller and have a yellow face with a black mask. (Click here for an older post with photos of both types of hummingbird moths.)

The Natural Treasures of Ohio!

Mt. Airy Forest is one of the sites in the The Nature Conservancy's Natural Treasures of Ohio sweepstakes. If you go to Mt. Airy Forest, snap a photo of yourself at the super cool Everybody's Treehouse and submit it to enter to win a Honda Insight Hybrid (you have until August 8, 2012). Click here for more information.

Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth (Hemaris diffinis)

When I saw this furry little hummingbird lookalike fly up to a milkweed blossom, I at first thought he was a Hummingbird Clearing Moth (Hemaris thysbe), but when he turned sideways, I could see he was wearing a little black mask and black gloves, making him a Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth (Hemaris diffnis)...

A Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth (Hemaris diffinis) nectars on Common Milkweed.

The little black mask on his face and the black gloves on his legs give him away as a Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth (Hemaris diffinis). The other Hummingbird moth, a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe), has no mask and has lighter colored legs. Click here for a previous post on Hemaris thysbe.

While nectaring, hummingbird moths stabilize their hovering by placing their front legs on the blossom.

...such a furry little body! He looks more like a tiny flying mouse than a moth. I'm surprised he doesn't have the nickname Hummingbird Mouse...since "flying mouse" (Die Fledermaus, Bat) is already taken!

Hummingbird moths start with maroon-colored wings, but after their first flight, the scales start to drop off, creating the "clear wings" for which they are named.

This Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth was nectaring at Shawnee State Park just outside the nature center in the butterfly garden.

...the yellow bands on the inside of his abdomen cause some to worry his is a very large bumble bee, but don't worry, the Snowberry Clearwing has no stinger. He just likes to drink nectar...

Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe) and Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth (Hemaris diffinis)

Birding Hocking Hills in Southeastern Ohio

...continued from the Great Spangled Fritillary post.

I remember the first time I ever saw a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth. It was 19 years ago in the backyard of our first house. I was standing by a patch of Black-eyed Susans when he flew up to a blossom. “Ohhhh, a hummingbird!” I thought. Until I looked closer and realized it was most definitely not a hummingbird. I remember it frightened me in a “something’s gone awry in nature” way because it looked like neither a bird nor an insect, and to top it off, it had fur (or at least is looked like it did)! I watched him for a while as he quickly went from flower to flower, until it suddenly dawned on me that he might be a bee and have a really big stinger, so I high-tailed it out of there and called mom. I can’t remember if she knew what he was or not, but I do remember a few days later I read an article in the paper about Hummingbird Moths and have thought they were really cool ever since.

I found this furry-looking Hummingbird Clearwing 

Moth (Hemaris thysbe) at the Clear Creak Metro Park 

on the Creekside Meadow trail.

Hummingbird Clearwing Moths are

often called “Common Clearwings.”

I love his little curled-up proboscis.

In my new National Audubon Society “Field Guide

to Insects and Spiders,” I read that the wings are

“plum-red” to “brownish black” at first, but the scales

drop off after the first flight leaving the clear areas.

Hummingbird Clearwing Moths can be found

around forest edges, meadows, and cultivated

flower gardens. They like nectaring on

Phlox and Bee Balm.

Check out this fellow. He’s smaller than a Common Clearwing and is called a Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth.

Nectaring on Bee Balm, I found this Snowberry 

Clearwing Hummingbird Moth (Hemaris diffinis) 

at the meadow's edge on the Prairie Warbler trail.

With such an interesting little 

masked face, he's hard to resist.