Thursday, August 29, 2013

Hornworms and Hawkmoths

I often find giant green hornworms on tomato vines in our summer garden but this year I noticed hornworms on the vitex tree instead.

camouflaged hornworm on vitex tree


rustic sphinx munching a leaf





The hornworm is much easier to see on a bare branch.

Goldfinches watched the caterpillars from the mesquite tree.




Hummingbirds were curious too!





A hornworm from last year demonstrating the classic sphinx pose:

tobacco hornworm on bell pepper plant

For several years, I assumed the large green caterpillars on my tomato plants were tomato hornworms, but now I see that they look more like tobacco hornworms (Carolina sphinx) or Rustic sphinx larvae.

Tomato hornworms have eight v-shaped markings on each side where tobacco or rustic hornworms have seven diagonal white lines.

Hornworms morph into sphinx moths, also known as hummingbird moths that can hover in mid-air feeding on flower nectar as hummingbirds do.  Another name for sphinx moth is hawk moth, due to their long narrow wings and powerful flight.

Two years ago I found a rustic sphinx moth on the ground under the vitex tree.  It held onto my fingers, exercising its wings, having perhaps just emerged from underground and not able to fly yet.


14 second video of the rustic sphinx moth
(noisy bird sounds in background)


rustic sphinx moth


Here's a different kind of sphinx moth, the white-lined sphinx (Hyles lineata) clinging to the stucco wall below the porch light:

white-lined sphinx moth

I've just mentioned four types of hawkmoths but today I learned that there are about 1400 species of hawkmoths!

Friday, August 23, 2013

Snapshots of the Sky

Here are some sky pictures from the past week.

sunrise 8/19/2013 5:40am

Full "blue" moon with clouds on Wednesday:

moon 8/21/2013 5:11am

Thursday:
moon and mesquite tree  8/22/2013 5:58am


8/22 moon closer up - nice light golden color

 My son called last evening to tell me that the moon was glowing red:

moon 8/22/2013 8:16pm

red oval-shaped moon

The moon this morning with a dark sky:

moon  8/23/2013 4:16am

and a blue sky:

moon 8/23/2013 6:05am


Also this morning, even with a cloudy sky I could see the planet Jupiter and the Orion constellation to the east just before sunrise.


I'm pretty sure the two red colored dots are the stars Betelgeuse (Orion's shoulder) and Aldebaran (the fiery eye of Taurus the bull).

8/23/2013 5:14am

And finally, here's an interesting cloud from last Friday:

clouds 8/16/2013 6:46pm

It looks like the gray color was brushed onto the white cloud with a huge paint brush.

cloud close up with Vitex tree branch

Visit Skywatch Friday to view skies from around the world.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

August Morning

Last Tuesday I went for a walk to enjoy the clouds and whatever else I might notice along the way.

sunrise





I was delighted to see the usual plants and animals.

barrel cactus with flower buds


saguaro cactus arm bud


Empress Leilia butterfly


Harris' antelope ground squirrel


desert cottontail 


roadrunner

And I was able to watch two roadrunners, assumed to be parent and "big baby" for a little while. That was a first for me to see one roadrunner feeding another. The younger one was quite persistent!



roadrunner feeding a butterfly to chick



Roadrunner and youngster video (42 seconds)

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Prickly Pears

I was just noticing some of the different colors of fruit on the prickly pear cacti growing in the wild around here.
























That's about it for now.

Have a great day!

Friday, August 9, 2013