Rewilding My Lot

I am outside every morning at 7am to take a rain gauge reading for CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network). When it’s the right season to be light enough, that’s a good time to wander around looking for other interesting things in the garden.

One early spring morning, I saw a Sphinx moth resting on the Mexican Plum tree. I had to wait until it was lighter to get a reasonable photo for identification in iNaturalist, and the feedback I got was that this is an Obscure Sphinx (Erinnyis obscura). Given the camouflage in this setting, obscure seems an apt name. It remained on the tree for several hours, but had moved away by 3pm.

These moths feed on flower nectar (of which there is very little available at the moment), and they generally start feeding at sunset after resting during the day.