Bugs and moths, oh my!

 A new exhibit is just opened at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts. We went to the reception/opening last Friday. It included children's art, as well as a presentation on moth diversity by Lenny Lampel, a Natural Resources Supervisor with Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation’s Division of Nature Preserves and Natural Resources in Charlotte, NC.

A beautifully crafted moth is climbing the windows of the director of BMCA. 

It was made by Teresa Cote'

The ceramic artist, Libba Tracy was the organizing force behind this exhibit about bugs.

I greatly enjoyed the wonderful refreshments. The cheese tray was decorated with little bugs made of food stuffs. Other pieces were offered, and a "return the bugs bowl" was available in case you decided to eat the part that wasn't bug.

Half the fun of being at these openings is meeting other Black Mountain and Asheville residents that we've known from other places.

I enjoyed seeing these two huge arrangements of real flowers. This one was on the food table. The other was centered in the room.

On this wall we could see the art done by school students. Very well done - topic being bugs!

On to the gallery! I was thrilled by this wonderful ceramic bust.

Ann Lutz just started being a fiber artist, and refuted the term artist. But I noticed her piece had sold!

An actual moth was pinned in this tray, with other natural artifacts.

I must admit to only taking a few photos of this exhibit. These struck my fancy. I'm sure some of the other paintings, drawings and mixed media creations would be as lovely to others.

We had really a wonderful evening to enjoy the balcony area and chat with  friends.

I'm very glad I attended the presentation also. There I learned that of all the Lepidoptera species, the taxonomy of only butterflies and skippers is just one of about two dozen, while all the rest are moths. 

Today's quote:

 "My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate." Thornton Wilder, American playwright and novelist (1897 - 1975)

A bee or hummingbird?

Last week the Flame Azalea by my parking spot looked like this...

Three days later, it looks like this.

But what stopped me in my tracks were the bees buzzing around them and the azaleas on the other side of the walkway.

Regular bees and wood bees were obvious.  But in the midst of the Flame Azalea, there was a longer one, blacker, with a strange tail which stuck out.  As he fluttered from flower to flower, I couldn't see his wings, but saw a long beak pointing into the flowers.

I asked him to stay there while I fumbled in my purse for my camera...to no avail.  He took off, and I just remembered how he was longer than a bee, had a tail like a bird, the feathers were obvious though tiny, and he was grey/black and had some yellow stripes on his back.

So I thought, a Bee Humingbird, how fortunate I was!

Bee Hummingbirds are the smallest known living birds in the world - being comparable in size to bumble bees and are lighter than a Canadian or U.S. penny. Females are slightly larger than males.

Bee Hummingbirds measure mostly between 1.97 - 2.36 inches or 5 - 6 cm in length - including beak and tail; and they weigh between 0.06 - 0.07 oz or 1.6 - 1.9 g. 

But they are in Cuba!  And it really wasn't anywhere near the size of a regular hummingbird (Ruby Throated like we have all summer)

So then I went for bees. And didn't find anything like him.

 And then I came back an hour later, and took pictures of him, (though it may be a her, I'll just continue to say him.)

By now I notice he really seems like a bug, aren't those legs sticking out under his body?

You can't miss his irridescent yellow stripes...not exactly on his tail, but on the tail end of his body.

And here is the other big bee which is also pollinating on the same plants - the wood bee.  They have to land to eat, so none of that fluttering of the others.

So far the closest thing I've found on the net is a moth called the Snowberry Clearwing.

And there's a link HERE that differentiates from Hummingbirds and Hummingbird Moths...of which there are 1200 species.  So the Snowberry Clearwing that I'm showing next, isn't exactly like the one we have, but it's closer than anything else!

 Snowberry Clearwing

 Bumblebee moth

Bumblebee moth

Hummingbird clearwing

Well, I wish mine had stood still, or I had a faster shutter speed to capture all these details.

But they sure did give me an afternoon of research. And I'm glad they aren't bee moths, which apparently lay their eggs in the bees hives in the wax.