August 8, 2013

Rufous Hummingbird at Thistle

Rufous Hummingbird at Thistle

White-lined Sphinx Moth at Thistle

White-lined Sphinx Moth at Thistle

Did anyone happen to see Clay Thompson’s Valley 101 column toward the end of July discussing hummingbirds and sphinx moths?  I’ve never been a big fan of Valley 101, and I’ll have to admit it’s probably based on jealousy.  When this column used to appear in the Arizona Republic, Clay would get more questions about birds than I would.  I realized, of course, that most of his inquiries came from casual bird observers rather than serious birders or real outdoor enthusiasts, but still . . . .

To his credit, Clay has never been shy about calling a spade a spade, often reserving a page in his “Great Big Book of Really Dumb Questions” for spectacularly vacuous inquiries.  However, since my “handlers” at the Republic wouldn’t even allow me to capitalize the common names of specific species, I rankled at the liberty he was given on this.  So, back in July someone supposedly emailed to ask Clay if hummingbirds were just large insects.  Really?  It still sometimes crosses my mind that no one in the twenty-first century could be that unaware of life around them, and Clay must be making this stuff up to give himself good subject matter for his drollery.

But wait!  My lovely wife reminded me that back in the nineties my mother called excitedly one evening from the Midwest to tell us she had hummingbirds coming to her rose garden.  My wife and my mother were not, um, bosom buddies, so you can see where this reminder was probably going, but the long distance conversation went something like this—my mother had roses, she had never seen hummingbirds around her flowers in the past, all of a sudden they were visiting her roses, and she couldn’t wait to show us on our upcoming visit.  Hummingbirds at roses?  Yeah, I was skeptical.

My mother, though responsible for my original interest in birds, was only a casual bird observer.  She did not have hummingbird feeders, did not even own a pair of binoculars, and was certainly not a student of birdlife.  Sure enough, when we arrived back home one of the first things we had to do was sit out at the rose garden and wait for the arrival of my mother’s hummingbirds.  This was northern Missouri where the only breeding hummer species is Ruby-throated.  It was a long, emotionally uncomfortable wait because, as Clay Thompson suspected of his emailer, my mother had mistakenly identified White-lined Sphinx Moths as Ruby-throats, was positive we were crazy when we told her the hard facts, and lived in denial about this incident until her death.

The White-lined Sphinx Moth, Hyles Lineata, like hummingbirds, is a rapid flyer, hovers while feeding on flower nectar, and is capable of quick side-to-side movement known as side-slipping, thought to be an evolutionary adaptation to avoid predators hiding in flowers and not to be confused with Simon & Garfunkel’s “Slip Sliding Away.”  Hover feeding by hummingbirds and moths is an example of convergent evolution (bats and hoverflies can do it too), and is undoubtedly the primary reason my mother could well have written the email inquiry to Clay Thompson and had it enshrined forever in the “Great Big Book of Really Dumb Questions.”

For a fun read about newspaper columnists and their editors, check out jimburnsphotos.com/pages/messageinabottle.html.