Hummingbird Moth

Dear Diary,

I wandered out to the garden.  My back is really beginning to feel better I think.  The rest and stretching seems to be working.  My little meditation garden was planted with flowers to attract bees and butterflies but this little Hummingbird Moth was just overjoyed to see the Liatris beginning to bloom!

They are such sweet wee ones.  Their transparent wings beat incredibly fast, like a hummer, and it does look like he has tiny tail feathers.  Like the hummer, he doesn't land to feed but floats above the flower and inserts his long feeding tube to reach the nectar.  I could watch them for hours and they normally let me.  Once the Liatris is in full bloom it will be a magnet to butterflies as well as the little moth.

We got a couple of cracking thunderstorms last night with some brief but much welcome showers.  It hasn't made it any cooler, unfortunately, but the garden is at least temporarily refreshed.  This is the time of year for storms of this kind. Last year on this date we had three small tornadoes touch down around here.  Some wild storms can be spawned by the mountains.  Makes life interesting to say the least.