Moth in the Mirror

Is there a better way to start a holiday weekend than taking pictures of a moth on a mirror? Of course there are, but you have to admit, this looks kinda awesome.

Moth in the mirror I

Look at the moth belleh! I love the way it looks like it’s face-to-face with another moth, with their little feet touching like they’re playing patty-cake.

Me being me, o’ course, I took several shots:

Moth in the mirror II

That one shows off that kind of ruff thing it’s got going on, sorta like a lion’s mane – anybody know why that evolved?

Moth in the mirror III

That didn’t turn out as sharp as I’d have liked, but I like the angle, so there you are. Speaking of angles, you’d be amazed at the contortions you have to go through to get a macro of a moth in a mirror without shooting both yourself and the camera.

You may be wondering why there’s a moth on my bathroom mirror. It’s due to this wee beastie:

Ye olde homicidal kitteh, looking very innocent in a sunbeam. Do not be deceived.

When she goes out on the porch, she freaks out if I don’t leave the door open for her. This allows random moths to fly in, and for some reason, they loves them the bathroom. One ended up in the kitchen once, and I watched it drink sweat off my soda can, which was strangely fascinating. But normally, they head straight for the bathroom, where they hang out on the mirror or hide in the shower curtain, and scare the crap out of me by flying out without warning. Sometimes, I’m able to catch them and usher them back outside, but they resist. I suppose they could find their way out if they wish.

Anyway. Insects. Figured I’d share one. RQ was mentioning FtB needed more insects. There’s also some talk of botany. We’re doing a walk through the woods on Sunday, so I imagine I can find some o’ that for ye. Geology is my first love, but we’re not in an exclusive relationship, so I’m sure it won’t get jealous.

It’s a holiday weekend here in the US (thank you, unions!), and I haz planz for it involving paint and nails and hiking, so I may be a bit scarce, but I’ll try to get you a UFD posted soon. If anyone has any special requests for things found along streams in the Cascades, now’s the time to say. And I may go hunt some dragonflies on Monday – one so large I could see it clearly even at a distance of several feet stopped at the light with me today, and hovered outside the windshield for a moment, telling me that a walk by the pond would probably be rewarded with some amazing critters. Perhaps there will even be butterflies. Time to drink the last drops of summer, it seems.

See you soon, my darlings!

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Moth in the Mirror
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5 thoughts on “Moth in the Mirror

  1. rq
    1

    Speaking of moths, this was in the interwebs today:
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2012/08/mysterious-poodle-moth-has-the-web-buzzing.html

    Pretty neat!

    I THINK the hairy ruff has to do with night-time sensitivity (wind currents and possibly electrical or heat currents). Because moths tend to be hairier than butterflies as a rule, and they’re more likely to be out and about in the evening/night-time, where non-visual (or at least, non-light-oriented) senses are so much more important. I know some species use their radio-antennae-like antennae to perceive ultrasound (bat avoidance?). But I’m not sure if the ruff has that kind of a function, if it has a function at all.
    Maybe they just like fur coats. It IS colder at night, you know…

  2. F
    5

    Hey, much better than the weekend-starting photos I have.

    I thought everything had calmed down by 23:00 or 00:00, after the sasquatches had stopped fighting in the woods, making their racket of throwing sticks and chattering, screeching, and bark-quacking.

    But around 01:20, I saw lights dimly through the trees, accompanied by the sounds of scattering stones, about 2 radians away from the direction where I heard bigfoot.

    Then commenced the hammering. I followed the sound of metal on metal and stone, and the little light that was visible, to a spot near where a road ran through the woods. Ghastly shadows did their unnatural work, with much clanging and tossing of gravel, in a dim illumination behind something in the road. Then blackness. There were five more various loud and hollow or dull bangs, a roar, then silence,

    At 02:00, they came back. I knew because of the circle of many bright lights hovering in the air 2.5-3.5 meters off the ground, in a direction equally opposite the first encounter and the bigfoot. There were also lights of varying colors, some flashing, in the alien landing zone. There came a roaring sound, followed by the crashing of trees, a snapping of limbs, followed by grinding, scraping and banging. Inexplicably accompanied by loud country music.

    It wasn’t too long until I discovered that the aliens had stolen our water, as well as beating up the trees. It was then that I decided to try and capture some photographic evidence of this event. The camera sucks, but I got a few shots before I went back inside and locked all the doors after becoming mysteriously tired in the extreme.

    Late the next afternoon, we finally got water back. But it had been changed to the color of blood in mud.

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