A brief essay on hummingbird moths

A Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe) approaches Wild Bergamot flowers

A brief essay on hummingbird moths

Columbus Dispatch
July 30, 2023

NATURE
Jim McCormac

Many a person has marveled over tiny “hummingbirds” visiting their flowers but hit a brick wall when trying to identify them. Leafing through a bird field guide won’t help. One needs a moth guide to put a name to these “hummers.”

The source of their fascination – and confusion – are hummingbird clearwing moths. These insects represent a fascinating case of convergent evolution. Just as real hummingbirds do, these lepidopteran speedsters specialize in extracting nectar from flowers while on the wing. Thus, they have developed many of the characteristics of real hummingbirds and look much like them.

In Ohio, there are two species: hummingbird clearwing moth (Hemaris thysbe) and snowberry clearwing moth (Hemaris diffinis). Both are common and found statewide. The former is slightly larger, suffused with reddish on the wings and body, and has yellowish legs. Snowberry clearwings are blacker with dark legs. They belong to the sphinx moth family, which includes about 53 species in Ohio.

I recently visited Kamama Prairie in Adams County, a gorgeous property owned by the Arc of Appalachia. It is floristically diverse and contains many rare plant species. My aim this trip was to photograph botanical gems like scaly blazing-star, false aloe and grooved flax.

A big patch of wild bergamot near the parking lot caught my eye. This common mint is a magnet for pollinators, and these plants had attracted the usual complement of bumblebees, myriad smaller native bees and others. But what stopped me in my tracks were hummingbird moths. Up to a dozen were in view simultaneously.

Not one to miss good photo ops, my focus shifted from plants to moths. Both hummingbird clearwing and snowberry clearwing moths were present, although the former outnumbered the latter. They’re surprisingly difficult to photograph well. To say hummingbird moths are fleet of wing would be an understatement. They seldom tarry long, and at full whirl can beat their wings a remarkable 85 times a second. In comparison, a ruby-throated hummingbird normally generates about 55 flaps per second. Fast camera work is required to freeze the action, and I worked at shutter speeds ranging from 1/4000 to 1/8000 of a second.

I knew a big patch of the rare (in Ohio) tall larkspur grew in the prairie, and before long, I headed that way. The statuesque larkspur can grow to 5 feet or more in height and are crowned with elongate racemes containing dozens of beautiful flowers.

Hummingbird moths are also smitten with larkspur, and I didn’t have long to wait for opportunities to photograph them visiting the flowers. It’s amazing to watch a moth approach a flower, unfurl its amazingly long proboscis, and deftly plumb the depths of the corolla, rapidly locating the nectar reward.

One need not visit a remote Adams County prairie to see hummingbird moths. It’s easy to entice them to your own property, even in urban and suburban environments. All that’s needed is a bit of botanical magic.

The caterpillars of hummingbird moths feed mostly on members of the honeysuckle family, but not nasty non-native invasives such as Amur or Japanese honeysuckles. Good natives that are easy to find in the nursery trade include various viburnums, and my favorite is arrowwood viburnum (Viburnum dentatum). A particularly showy option is trumpet honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), a vining plant with stunning orange-red flowers that also lure real hummingbirds. Coralberry (Symphoricarpos albus) and dwarf honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera) are also great host plants.

Once appropriate host plants are established, all one needs are good nectar plants for the moths. In addition to the aforementioned wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), others include bee-balm (Monarda didyma), various native phloxes (spotted phlox, also known as Phlox maculata, is a great one) and wood mints in the genus Blephilia.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

A Snowberry Clearwing Moth (Hemaris diffinis) taps bergamot nectar

 

Tall Larkspur (Delphinium exaltatum), with Hummingbird Clearwing Moth

 

Tall Larkspur (Delphinium exaltatum)

Last Thursday, July 20, I had the chance to commune with hummingbird clearwing moths in a beautiful Adams County, Ohio, prairie. A botanical highlight was dozens of elegant Tall Larkspurs (Delphinium exaltatum). The hummingbird clearwing moths love Tall Larkspur, and it didn't take long for action to occur. I was able to get lots of images of both Hummingbird Clearwing Moths (Hemaris thysbe) and Snowberry Clearwing Moths (H. diffinis) at the larkspur, and also Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa).

As always, click the image to enlarge

A Hummingbird Clearwing Moth works the flowering raceme of a larkspur. The amazing little moths love this plant, and so does this photographer. Tall Larkspur is a rarity in Ohio, and always a treat to see. The speedy hummingbird moths just up the ante, making for wonderful photo ops.

While photographing the plant is not such hard work, shooting the moths is. At full tilt, hummingbird clearwing moths can beat their wings 85 times a second! That's faster than a Ruby-throated Hummingbird normally flaps its appendages. To make this image - and nearly all others that I took this day - I used a Gitzo tripod, just as I would for birds. My artillery was the amazing Canon R5 mounted to the Canon 400mm f/2.8II. The settings for this shot were f/7.1, 1/4000 shutter speed, and ISO 6400. The latter parameter is most bothersome to me, as I normally do everything possible to shoot at much lower ISO ranges. However, I did not use flash for this shot, and such blazingly fast shutter speeds necessitates much higher ISO settings. 

I did play around with flash, using a Better Beamer with its fresnel lens to throw light much farther afield. That worked pretty well, too, but I probably prefer the flashless look. Also, as it takes a second or so for the flash to recycle for the next shot, I couldn't shoot in high-speed burst mode. Without flash I could machine gun fire at up to 20 frames a second, offering a much greater chance of capturing a particularly pleasing wing position and overall posture.

Fortunately, cameras are getting much better at dealing with the noise caused by high ISO, and programs like Topaz Denoise do an amazing job in reducing ISO noise in post-processing.

Hummingbird clearwing moths

I didn't let much grass grow under my feet this weekend. Saturday, it was off to Caesar Creek Lake in southwest Ohio, where I met up with Ned Keller, Kathy McDonald, and Debi Wolterman to sort out last minute details for next weekend's butterfly workshop. The next day, it was off to see some of the coolest natural areas in Geauga County, then from there directly to Tuscarawas County where I joined in on some interesting moth-ing last night. Rolled back into Columbus about 6:30 this morning...

Of course, I had the camera in tow and was able to make a few images here and there. This is one of the prairie meadows at Caesar Creek, where we'll be taking field trips next Saturday as part of the aforementioned butterfly workshop. We saw plenty of interesting critters in this field, and other similar habitats. By the way, this image was taken with my iPhone 5S, which has a remarkable built-in camera (and video function). I often use it to document habitats, people, and places.

Of particular interest were some cooperative hummingbird moths. This is the species that you're most likely to encounter in Ohio, the hummingbird clearwing, Hemaris thysbe. It, and the other Hemaris moths are day-flying sphinx moths, and can be quite conspicuous as they take nectar at flowers. They're fairly tame, but that doesn't necessarily equate to easy photo ops.

As with real hummingbirds, these moths are quick and darty, and beat their wings at incredible speed. To freeze the action, more or less, one must use an extremely fast shutter speed. I made this image and the next with my Canon 5D Mark III at ISO 250, no flash, f/3.2, and a shutter speed of 1/4000. Even though I probably got some technically better images showing the entire animal in sharper focus, I like this one, as it illustrates the incessant speed of the moth as it moves around the flowers. Just remember to always focus on the eye - if that feature is sharp the rest of the image will usually fall into place.

This is our other regularly occurring "hummingbird moth" in the genus Hemaris, the snowberry clearwing, H. diffinis. I don't see this one as often as the previous species, and was pleased to encounter both in short order on the same day. Note how much blacker this species is, even its legs.

All camera settings were the same for this shot as the previous, except I bumped up the shutter speed to 1/5000. Even that wasn't enough to fully arrest the movement of the wings, but the body of the insect is more or less tack sharp. For this shot, I made a conscious effort to shoot the animal from the side, so as to get better clarity of focus throughout its body. Setting up on feeding clearwing moths is made easier by their habit of systematically circling the flower heads of the wild bergamot, Monarda fistulosa, upon which they love to feed. The photographer can just kneel by the flower, and wait for the moth to work its way around and into good position for photos.

Hummingbird Clearwing moth

Write, write, write... I do a lot of it. But no complaints - I enjoy trying to grab up big bunches of words, and make something coherent emerge from the pile. And good writing takes practice. I'm not putting myself into the "good writer" category, but I can try and veer ever closer to some sort of legitimacy :-)

 

Anyway, in addition to the stuff that I've got going on in my own personal world of writing, I'm in the midst of two large writing projects at work. This means that I'm largely affixed to my desk from 8 to 5, and every now and then a break is in order. Early this afternoon, between our seemingly never-ending storms and showers, I headed outside our building, Canon 5D in tow. Destination: a small planted prairie that's a riot of color from coneflowers, compass-plant, bergamot and other prairie fare.

 

This brief photographic excursion turned out to be perhaps the brightest idea I had today. Nearly as soon as I clapped eyes on the little prairie, a Hummingbird Clearwing, Hemaris thysbe, shot by! I think these day-flying sphinx moths are just about the neatest things on scaly wings, with the added perk of making for supremely challenging photo subjects.

As soon as the moth darted by, I clicked the camera to shutter priority and notched the control wheel to a speed of 1/1250 - super fast!

Hummingbird Clearwing Photo Tip: If you're out to catch one of these bugs on pixels, use as fast a shutter speed as you can get away with. This'll mean turning the camera off Full Auto, and to Shutter Priority (easiest way). Then, you can easily control the speed at which the camera's shutter opens and closes, and let the camera figure out the other parameters.

Hummingbird Clearwings, when patrolling for nectar, are in perpetual motion. Their wings are a blur, a la hummingbird, and they're nearly always jigging and bobbing. I dare say there are more fuzzy, blurry shots of these moths than the vast majority of insects. A lightning fast shutter speed is essential to freeze them.

This particular Hummingbird Clearwing was smitten with the nectar of Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa. The moth would rapidly approach a flowering head, unfurl its staggeringly long proboscis and deftly thrust it deep into a flower's corolla tube. All in the blink of an eye. And off in a circle the animal would go, plundering its way around the inflorescence and then quickly darting to a new plant.

The nonstop bustle of this moth brings up another Photo Tip: Put your camera on burst mode. Ever had some bird photographer with a huge tripod-mounted lens standing next to you when something cool came along? All of a sudden his/her camera explodes to life with an Uzi-like rapidfire burst of clicks. That's burst mode. My Canon will pop off about six shots a second, and by employing a photographic blitzkrieg, your odds of getting a decent image of a rapidly moving object go way up.

This rather pleasing little shrub is Wild Honeysuckle, Diervilla lonicera, and it is one of the native good guys. Some nurseries stock it, and Diervilla is a plant worth searching out. In addition to its aesthetics, Wild Honeysuckle is a host plant for the caterpillars of Hummingbird Clearwing moths. This is one of myriad examples of why landscaping with native plants is infinitely interesting. Toss the right botanical ingredients out, and you make things such as Hummingbird Clearwing moths.

Should you find yourself near Dayton, Ohio, on Saturday, July 27, stop by the Midwest Native Plant Conference. There'll be vendors galore and scads of valuable native plants for sale. You'll certainly find some flora that will enrich your yard. NOTE: The conference and its various talks and programs is full, but Saturday is open to the public for purposes of visiting our vendors, so feel free to stop by.

This rather charming little caterpillar with the black and yellow horn is the larvae of our other common hummingbird moth, the Snowberry Clearwing, Hemaris diffinis. I made this image last year, in a very urban area not too far from my office. By using the right plants, it isn't too hard to attract such beasts. Plant proper plants, and they will come.