Friday, September 18, 2026 White-lined Sphinx Hummingbird Moth
This was different. Martin saw what he thought was a hummingbird feeding at one of the redbirds in a tree by the front door. Nope, too small, it was a moth!! After some image searching with Bing, it turns out to be a White-lined Sphinx Hummingbird Moth ( Sphingidae Hyles lineata). That says it is nocturnal, but it was broad daylight at about 4:30 PM.
The redbirds in a tree (Scrophulariaceat Scrophularia macrantha) are hummingbird pollinated and occur only in Grant and Luna counties in New Mexico. Fortunately, it is widely grown for gardens and landscaping, so its not actually endangered.
Well, maybe not so much daylight… The clouds were really thick and we were only seeing 13.85 watts per square meter of solar radiation coming in. Normally at this time we see over 150 watts per square meter. The moth thought 1/10 of daylight was close enough to night to come out and get a snack. That dim light made it extremely difficult to get a good still shot because the iPhone had to keep its shutter open for too long to get a good sharp shot of the speedy beast.
The movies worked a little better, but Martin didn’t want to get too close and spook it off, so he had to use a lot of zoom, which makes it hard to keep that moth in frame.
This movie is short because Martin couldn’t find the moth again after losing it, so the long search was trimmed off.
