{"id":25900,"date":"2014-08-16T06:45:27","date_gmt":"2014-08-16T12:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=25900"},"modified":"2014-08-16T08:17:27","modified_gmt":"2014-08-16T14:17:27","slug":"sphinx-hummingbird-moth-in-flight-5-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/16\/sphinx-hummingbird-moth-in-flight-5-images\/","title":{"rendered":"Sphinx (Hummingbird) Moth In Flight – (5 images)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I digress from birds or even mammals.\u00a0\u00a0Our subject will have no feathers or fur – instead we’ll see paired wings, body segments, antennae and an incredibly long “tongue”.\u00a0\u00a0 And we’ll have\u00a0close-up looks at a fascinating insect in flight.<\/p>\n

Yesterday morning while I was photographing hummingbirds on Antelope Island I had some opportunities with a sphinx moth.\u00a0 These relatively large moths are also called “hummingbird moths” because at first glance they are often mistaken for hummingbirds as they hover over flowers and use their very long\u00a0proboscis (“tongue”) to suck up\u00a0flower nectar\u00a0while their wings are beating very rapidly.<\/p>\n

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\"sphinx<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Like the hummingbirds I was photographing, this moth was feeding on Rocky Mountain Bee Plant.\u00a0 Here\u00a0the length of its\u00a0proboscis cannot be appreciated because most of it is hidden\u00a0behind the filament of a flower stamen (the proboscis\u00a0can be better\u00a0seen in later images).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As in other insects it has compound eyes but I’m struck by how much they resemble those of a vertebrate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sphinx<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There are many species of sphinx moths but I believe this one to be the White-lined sphinx (Hyles lineata<\/em>).\u00a0 I’ve included this image to show the broad pink median band on the hind-wing of this species and also to demonstrate their hummingbird-like hovering\u00a0flight\u00a0by the forward-swept wing position.\u00a0 I’m guessing that the speed of their wing-beats is very\u00a0close to that of hummingbirds because it required similar shutter speeds to freeze the motion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sphinx<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Here you can see most (though not all) of the length of the pollen-covered\u00a0proboscis.\u00a0 When not in use the proboscis is kept coiled up beneath the “chin”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sphinx<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0I snapped this photo just as the moth was uncoiling its proboscis to feed on the flower cluster at right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sphinx<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Though I was disappointed by the bright stem behind the moth I include this shot partly because it shows the groove at the front of the face that accommodates the base of the proboscis while it’s stored in the coiled position.<\/p>\n

I really enjoy the close-up looks my lens occasionally gives me of some of the finer details of nature that I normally would never notice or appreciate.\u00a0 While I often photograph birds in flight this was one of my first serious attempts at photographing an insect on the wing.\u00a0 I don’t think it will be my last.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I digress from birds or even mammals. Our subject will have no feathers or fur – instead we’ll see paired wings, body segments, antennae and an incredibly long “tongue”. And we’ll have close-up looks at a fascinating insect in flight. <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334],"tags":[31,2172,146,2168,2171,2169,1679,282,2167,1636,311,2170],"class_list":["post-25900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-compound-eye","tag-flight","tag-hummingbird-moth","tag-hyles-lineata","tag-proboscis","tag-rocky-mountain-bee-plant","tag-shutter-speed","tag-sphinx-moth","tag-tongue","tag-utah-2","tag-white-lined-sphinx-moth"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/sphinx-moth-9787-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-6JK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}