Hummingbird Moths
Most times, I go looking for subjects. Sometimes they find me.
I was taking some low light level shots of moonflowers in my GF's back yard. This is a cool flower - it is the size of a dinner plate, smells incredible, it blooms once, opening at dusk and falling off the vine the next day. It is a prodigious flowerer though, and there are tons of buds ready to open the next evening - they look like lime green ice cremee cones in the photos.
So, I'm intently focusing and something big buzzes by my head and starts feeding from the flowers. I had no freakin' idea what it was. Then another one, of a different color zoomed in. I was mesmerized...wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
It went on for 10 minutes. They'd zoom in, feed, zoom back out, and buzz by my head on the way back in.
Turns out these are hummingbird moths. They are trap line feeders - they return to the same food source continuously, and their favorite food source is the moonflower.
My GF and I set up cameras and tripods about 20 feet way, with flashes and burn up electrons for about half an hour at dusk when the weather is right. The GF is their favorite though, a couple have perched on her shoulder momentarily on their way back and forth.
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