Mothing in Wahkeena

An incredibly ornate cecropia moth caterpillar, Hyalophora cecropia, is heavily ornamented with colorful spiny nodules. It's big, too - a few inches in length. If all goes well for this caterpillar, it will eventually morph into one of our largest and most spectacular moths.

 A pair of cecropia cats happily noshes on the foliage of black cherry, Prunus serotina, a favored food plant.

I was out into the wee hours last night, participating in a moth-trapping expedition at the beautiful Wahkeena Nature Preserve just south of Lancaster. Wahkeena's naturalist, Robyn Wright-Strauss, raises the cecropia caterpillars and her charges made for some great photos. But our targets were wild, free-flying moths and we had great success, thanks to event organizer Dennis Profant.

A strange but showy beautiful wood-nymph, Eudryas grata, peers at your blogger from a leaf. I made many interesting images of some very cool night-flying insects on this foray, and will slap some of these up later today.