{"id":30573,"date":"2021-05-22T01:20:56","date_gmt":"2021-05-22T08:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=30573"},"modified":"2021-05-24T20:01:05","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T03:01:05","slug":"mating-moths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=30573","title":{"rendered":"Mating moths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Nature Canada bills the hummingbird moth as one of <a href=\"https:\/\/naturecanada.ca\/news\/blog\/the-hummingbird-moth-one-of-canadas-coolest-creatures\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Canada\u2019s coolest creatures<\/a>. But, who could have guessed just how cool it would be on this occasion?<\/p>\n<p>With spring, I often look for this moth. I rarely find it. Our local one is the Rocky Mountain Clearwing (<i>Hemaris thetis<\/i>) and you are lucky to even spot one, let alone watch it mate &#8212; and in midair.<\/p>\n<p>This moth not only flies by day, it sips nectar as it hovers over flowers in the manner of a hummingbird. This one was visiting lilacs.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-30576\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/clearwingmoth210521bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Amazingly, it was soon joined by another and they mated. The two of them continued to fly haphazardly about the lilac, seemingly using it as a sort of reference.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-30575\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/clearwingmoth210521cs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I believe the male is on the left. They never strayed far from the lilac during their aerial bout. <br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-30574\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/clearwingmoth210521as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Nature Canada bills the hummingbird moth as one of Canada\u2019s coolest creatures. But, who could have guessed just how cool it would be on this occasion? With spring, I often look for this moth. I rarely find it. Our &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=30573\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30573"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30590,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30573\/revisions\/30590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}