While Waiting for the Super Moon…

…I noticed insects utilizing the dog fennel plants.

Dog fennel, also known as Yankee weed, looks lovely and feathery in the summer, like asparagus fern.  But this time of year it looks blowsy and dry.  I don’t have allergies, but this plant looks like something that would cause allergies.  I have ignored its tiny nondescript white blooms, not thinking about the fact that white flowers are often attractive to moths.   It was buzzing with moths last night, and its tall stems were sheltering grasshoppers.

I will have to do more research to identify this moth.  This page at the Moth Photographers Group website explains that there are about 11,000 species of moth in North America, as compared to about 600 species of butterfly!  So moth identification is not easy.

I love taking pictures at night because for once I don’t have the problems of layers and layers of vegetation obscuring my focus point.  Obviously I do have some lighting problems.  Sometimes I hold a flashlight on the subject and sometimes I use the flash on the camera.  The flash captures the colors better, but the light areas get washed out and I have to go back and try to fix it in Photoshop.  But I enjoy the sharpness of the photos.

A tripod didn’t help for these photos because the insects were head-high, above the level of the tripod.  I was afraid the insects would fly off, so I just lifted up the camera with tripod attached.  Good bicep work-out.

The moon came up and I got a few pictures.