Tonight I was taking out the trash at dusk around 9:15 p.m., and I noticed what I thought were small hummingbirds hovering, feeding on the nectar of the lilacs springing up outside. I set my camera to a high shutter speed with flash to see if I could freeze their wings in action.
Once I started looking at the photos, it turned out my hummingbirds had antennae and thoraxes — they were 3-4 inch long giant moths!
These are called white-lined sphinxes, they are a type of moth that hovers to feed on nectar, and they come out at dusk. Because they come out in the dark and they dart around a lot, they are darn hard to photograph.
