The hummingbird moth has been billed by Nature Canada as one of Canada’s coolest creatures. Although a moth, it is out during the daytime when it sips nectar by hovering over flowers like a tiny hummingbird.
Somewhat uncommon, I have seen our local species only a couple of times, most recently in 2016. It is the Rocky Mountain Clearwing (Hemaris thetis). Four different species of hummingbird moths are found in North America, but sources suggest that thetis is the only one found in British Columbia.
It is again the time of year to watch for this strange creature, so yesterday I went looking. What I spotted, was clearly a hummingbird moth. It was out in the daytime and sipping nectar as it hovered over flowers. However, it was distinctly different than the thetis normally found in BC. What was it, and how did it get here?
I start with a picture of thetis, a Rocky Mountain Clearwing I took four years ago so as to show the differences with this year’s moth.
This is the moth seen yesterday. It behaves the same way as thetis as it hovers over a flower sipping nectar. Further, it is about the same size, but its body and wing pattern is different. When this blog was first posted. I thought yesterday’s moth was an eastern hummingbird moth. I was wrong. It is a Yellow-banded Day Sphinx Moth (Proserpinus flavofasciata), something labeled a hawk moth. However, this hawk moth behaves much like the hummingbird moth: it hovers over flowers as it sips nectar.
Here is a side view of the moth sipping nectar.
Two courtship displays
I watched two courtship displays of birds this morning. One was obvious; the other was subtle. A courtship display is a behaviour in which an animal (often a male) attempts to attract a mate.
The courtship display of the Wild Turkey is anything but recondite. The male spreads its tail, fluffs up its feathers, its head turns blue, its caruncles turn red, its beard hangs down and its snood elongates. Does it work? Well, the number of Wild Turkeys does seem to be increasing. Consider the role of the snood: a red fleshy protuberance that drapes overtop the bill and hangs down well beyond it. It turns out that females prefer to mate with long-snooded males, and this provides a sexual selection that increases the snood’s length. Of course, in an example of the excesses of the marketplace, the displaying male turkey is used in grocery-store marketing in the fall. Alas, it is the spring when the male displays, not at Thanksgiving.
A year ago, I saw a Wilson’s Snipe perched atop the exact same five-metre-tall snag as today. This struck me as rather odd as this snipe is usually secretive. It is well-camouflaged, shy, and it conceals itself within ground vegetation only to flush when approached. Yet, this is the second time I had seen one chirping its presence out in the open. It turns out that this is a courting behaviour. It sings a loud kit, kit, kit from a rather visible perch to attract a mate.
