Sunday, July 01, 2007

Ever seen a green

...moth? That's what the Fas Gas employee in The Pas, Manitoba asked me when I stepped out of the car to stretch my legs. Nope, I said, and followed him over to the corner of the building. There it was. I gave him a big thank you and rushed in to tell H, who was paying at the time. When H saw it, his smile became all the wider. That's a luna moth, H said. A luna moth at the northern edge of its known range. So there we sat at a busy gas station on July 1 while H photographed the moth. Meanwhile, the employee continued to point the moth out to his customers and one by one they came over to take a look. Some stopped to chat. One man had a particular interest in moths, so H pulled a field guide out of the trunk (our trunk contains quite a library) and there they stood discussing various moths. People came and went. The luna moth moved just a bit. Stopped in a more beautiful position.

6 comments:

Rhett Soveran said...

Very very nice moth. Who knew they could be so pretty.

Thanks for the gift. Pictures to come tonight!

Brenda Schmidt said...

Ha! You're welcome, Rhett! I look forward to the pics. I was worried about you guys. I saw you had a couple weather warnings while you were camping. We witnessed one heck of a storm where we were staying. It downed lots of trees and knocked power out for over 8 hours. Ugh. So as the chainsaws buzzed, removing trees from the lines, there I was, desperately seeking coffee.

Rhett Soveran said...

Yeh, we had quite a storm. Not a lot of rain, but it was sure noisy. Thankfully no tornado sucked me up.

Quick question: I kept seeing a bird that looked really pretty and I was wondering what it was. Most of them were all black except for bright red patches on their shoulders. What would that be?

Brenda Schmidt said...

The tornado was probably thankful, too! :)

Hm. A Red-winged Blackbird or an American Redstart. Both can be found there. Does one look familiar? It's tough to find a good example of a redstart online. They're far flashier in real life.

Rhett Soveran said...

Red-winged blackbird is the winner. Thanks. They were all over the place.

Brenda Schmidt said...

Nice! They're great birds.

Hurry up and post some pics!