More June Moths

Here are a few moths I found over the weekend. My usual procedure with moths I find at night is to capture them, refrigerate them overnight, and then photograph them during the day and release them. Photographing them during the day makes the colors look more natural without the harsh glare of a point-and-shoot camera's flash. It also makes it easier to add a ruler for scale. Some moths are more cooperative than others; sometimes one will escape before I can get any good photos of it. Others, like the one above, will cling to the side of their containers.

That one eventually did sit on the paper so that I could photograph its upperside. I think this is a Barberry Geometer Moth. As the name suggests, its larvae feed on barberry (Berberis sp.). Most likely it evolved eating the native American Barberry but expanded to the invasive Japanese Barberry as an alternate host plant. This one probably dined on one of the Japanese Barberry shrubs in the neighborhood. I found this one nectaring at Butterfly Weed.

I think this second moth is a Small Mossy Lithacodia. Most illustrations I have seen of this species have much more vivid colors. This one might just be a worn individual because otherwise the pattern is a close match.

One of the reasons I really like about noctuids like the lithacodia is that they look very cute from the side.

This last moth is a Speckled Renia Moth. I have already seen this species at least once this summer. In addition to these moths, I have a couple of tiny moths, but it will take a while longer to identify those.

American Robin

American Robins are usually the first birds to start singing in the morning in my neighborhood. When I lived in DC, one would usually start singing shortly after midnight during the breeding season. Here, they start a little later, but usually well before dawn.

I never found a robin nest in my old neighborhood, but here I usually see one in the spring. The one below is in a bush just outside the front door and relatively close to the sidewalk. Despite having people passing close by, the nest is well hidden. It is hard to see unless a robin flies in or out. Even then, the nest structure is not easy to make out.

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Flower Beetles

This beetle is a Strangalia luteicornis. It was one of many beetles of this species crawling on the limbs of a flowering winterberry bush. Strangalia luteicornis is a common eastern beetle species, with a distinctive shape and markings. Like other members of its genus, adults of this species are often found around flowers, where they feed on nectar.

Some of these beetles were piled in a clump, as if they were struggling with each other.

Others were mating.

In some cases, more than two were involved in a mating session. I saw a few triple-decker mating groups. It is amazing that they can keep their balance in a position like that.

In the photo above, three are piled up, and a fourth looks like it wants to join. Three seemed to be the maximum number that would work, though. When more beetles got involved, the stack would usually fall apart.

Loose Feathers #242

A Cattle Egret after being cleaned and released / US Coast Guard photo

Birds and birding news

• Over 60% of the world's penguin species are threatened or endangered. In most cases their population declines have been caused by overfishing, which depletes penguins' food supply. At least one species in Africa has suffered from oil spills.
• Mountain-dwelling birds are at a higher risk of extinction due to climate change if they occupy a narrow range of altitude. 
• An appeals court upheld the critical habitat designation for Mexican Spotted Owls.
• Two pairs of endangered Least Bell's Vireos are nesting in a California development's habitat restoration area.
• A wind farm in Ontario has killed 602 birds and 1,270 bats. Nature Canada argues that the deaths could have been avoided in the turbines were not built in an Important Bird Area.
• A biologist in Washington has been studying the effects of wind farms on birds. She finds that the mortality rate is generally low, but raptors are at a particularly high risk. She estimates that wind farms in Washington and Oregon kill about 6,500 birds and 3,000 bats per year.
• Cliff Swallows in California appear to have abandoned Capistrano for a country club.
• NatureInstruct has a new website for identifying birds. Its name somehow sounds  familiar.
• Falcon chicks discovered in Queens have been relocated to a nest on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

Birds in the blogosphere

• WorldWaders: Hunting in Myanmar is probably the main cause of the decline of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
• Great Auk or Greatest Auk: Triumph and Almost-Triumph and Not-Triumph and Dog Ticks
• Today in NJ Birding History: Atlantic City Bird Names
• NeuroKüz: The neuroscience of birdsong
• WildBird on the Fly: Two Audubon groups cited among worst charities
• burdr: Birdwatcher Finds Poachers While Birdwatching

Oil Spill

• Government scientists have revised their estimate of the oil spill's size. They now think that 20,000 to 40,000 barrels, and possibly as high as 50,000 barrels, have been spilling per day from the broken riser pipe. 
• Living the Scientific Life: Oiled SeaBirds: To Kill Or Not To Kill? What Is The Ethical Thing To Do?
• IBRRC: Post release survival of oil affected sea birds
• Bridget Stutchbury writes about the dangers the oil spill poses to migratory birds, particularly shorebirds.
• A journalist dove into the oil spill to see how the slick looked underwater.
• Here is video of a low-altitude flyover of the spill site.
• The Drinking Bird: The Oil Conservancy
• Daily Dead Birds tracks how many animals have died from the oil spill based on US Fish and Wildlife Service reports. 
• Some oiled birds are being released on the Atlantic coast of Florida after being cleaned.

Environment and biodiversity

• Insects can develop resistance to pesticides, so it is more effective to find other ways to control insect pests in your garden. Currently there are over 1,000 insect/insecticide resistance combinations.
• Alaska is using Tasers for controlling wildlife in dangerous situations. Wildlife officials argue that a Taser would be less harmful than a gun or tranquilizer.
• This week, a court convicted eight people for the Bhopal link but sentenced each to only two years in prison.
• A humpback whale washed up on a beach in New York.
• Wear Calvin Klein cologne if you want to be stalked by jaguars.

Blog carnivals

• I and the Bird #127
• Scientia Pro Publica #32
• Circus of the Spineless #51

I and the Bird

I and the Bird #127 is online at The Drinking Bird.