Our neighbors have a knack for seeing the little thing in nature. It helps that they tend to two gardens and two young boys; A child’s unburdened explorations reveal discoveries adults often overlook.
These folks just plain enjoy nature spinning its story in their yard. They wave us over for these discoveries—a baby hummingbird they nursed to independence, a flying squirrel living in a bird house, the clownish-striped caterpillars of monarch butterflies.
The other day it was a hawk moth, a fascinating creature less that two inches long, seemingly assembled with parts from a bee, hummingbird, wasp and dragonfly. Research revealed that these sweet feeders with long string-like tongues (proboscis) for probing flower tubes go by many names.
What we observed darting among blooming bee balm was a clear-winged hummingbird moth, also known as a hawk moth, from the sphinx moth family. They are daytime feeders, and if noticed at all are often assumed to be baby hummingbirds. However, baby hummingbirds don’t fledge until they are the size of their parents, and they don’t have antennae as do the sphinx moths.
So it’s August, and all that makes the month a mellow transition to the next season. Hawk moths, hummingbirds, and bees are pursuing the nectar of bee balm (bergamot in the wild). I walked away from the hawk moth in awe, wondering what else late summer will bring on days that dawn hazy but far from lazy as nature preps for autumn.
Spider webs glisten on the morning dew, the night work of the orb weaver spider, a dream weaver with visions of captured flies. The day drifts on as monarch butterflies squirm from chrysalids on milkweed with green pods. Tansies paint the roadsides yellow, and goldenrod takes the cue. Nearby Jerusalem artichokes nod approval as they bloom in the same hue.
Blackbirds whirl in synchrony and frenzy above fields of browning oats and barley. Bullfrogs poke their fat heads above the green scum of a warm lakeshore. Wild plums blush in purple, and clumps of mountain ash berries in deepening orange bow under their own weight. Squirrels scurry for green acorns, butternuts and walnuts.
I walk past field corn. Rope-like tassels, the male flower of corn, beg for a breeze to carry their pollen to the silk of young slender cobs in this business of manufacturing kernels. Somewhere, bears anticipate milk-stage corn.
I hear talk of tomatoes on a walk at sunset, a sunset 20 minutes earlier than two months ago. Where does summer go? It goes on the wings of Canada geese, their molt over, now flying against the dusky sky, adults and goslings alike, all with new flight feathers.
This evening, the Milky Way stretches across the sky, through the humid air, horizon to horizon. I wonder at its vastness. How many stars in it, how many creatures great and small under it? I wonder where the hawk moth is tonight.
Note: Want to read more nature essays like this? My book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available through online book sellers and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tail Books), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwind), and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at Bookstore at Fitger’s. For a personally-signed copy, contact me at davegreschner@icloud.com.
