Field Notes—

The Hummingbird Clearwing Hides In August’s Broad Daylight

By Curtiss Clark

August opens up the steam valves and pokes the coals of summer so that even the shady knoll where we live becomes an incubator at this time of year. Life teems at every level from the stink bugs in the leaf litter to the turkey vultures circling ominously overhead. Uncounted millions of living things move restlessly and alternately between night and day, predator and prey, damp and dry, boil and fry. In humans, the heat and humidity induce an ennui-infused stupor, perceptions blur, and it is hard to focus on anything but the lemonade pitcher. But what a show we are missing.

One sure way to regain our focus and fascination with the world in such times would be to radically change the scale of things. Imagine, for example, having a fully functioning Manhattan — with all its buildings, streets, trains, traffic, people, and pigeons — shrunk to a size that would fit on an ironing board. People would line up for miles to see it — even in the middle of August. The same would be true of a cow that fit in the palm of your hand or a ladybug the size of a Volkswagen. We see these things at normal scale every day, but we don’t look at them, really, because they are... well, quotidian — something we see every day.

This idea of natural scalability struck me after something caught my eye in the quotidian buzzing and commotion around the fading bee balm blossoms last week. In among the usual crowd of bees and butterflies were two hummingbird clearwing moths, hovering, darting into blossoms, backing up, changing course, hovering, and darting all over again. They were so fixed on the task before them, extracting every last drop of nectar from every last blossom, that they paid no heed to me. I could watch them from inches away, and when the details of their amazing anatomy came into focus, it occurred to me that if these moths were human-sized, the world would be far more fantastic. People would sit up and take notice, even on a lazy August afternoon.

The moths get their name from their passing resemblance to hummingbirds. While they have neither beak nor feathers, their wings hum along at 25 to 30 beats per second, enabling them to dart and hover like a hummingbird, and their velveteen bodies share the same green, buff, and burgundy coloring as their namesakes.

But that’s where the similarities end. Like all moths, they have antennae, six legs, compound eyes, and a truly amazing sipping-straw proboscis, which they keep coiled up when not in use. Clearwings favor Japanese honeysuckle, bee balm, red clover, lilacs, and thistle, which all have long funnel-and-tube nectar-filled florets, so in the final approach to the blossom, the long proboscis is unfurled to become the perfect nectar-gathering tool.

Hummingbird clearwing moths need every sweet calorie they can get to power their wings, which most of the time are just a blur. In rare instances, they do stop to perch on a blossom and it is possible to see the wings at rest. They look like two glass panels leaded in deep green and burgundy — something one might expect to see in a jewel box.

Clearwings are just one of 125 moths in the sphinx moth family (Sphingidae), which got its name from the peculiar sphinxlike pose assumed by their larvae when they are disturbed. Most sphinx moths are active only at night, but the hummingbird clearwing moth’s regal raiment is so fine that somewhere along the line Nature cleared it for daytime exposure so we could all get a good look at it.

Unfortunately, it’s the middle of August and everyone is staring at the lemonade pitcher. Maybe it’s time for Nature to approve a six-foot version of the bug.