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Birding Blacklighting

Birds and Moths

I’m enjoying the relatively cool temperatures at my campsite. Back in Pierre, temps have been over 100 F. but it hasn’t been over 90 F. here. It cools off at night. I’ve been spending time at Jumpoff Spring and Baldwin Spring. There isn’t a lot of bird activity but enough to get some good photos. Just a few minutes ago I went outside and heard some loud squawking, looked around and saw a Gray Jay, first one since I got here. It is very quiet up here; I cannot hear the National Guard except when a helicopter flies in almost every day. There is lots of Mountain Lion sign, I hope I can get more video of one. Last night, the wind went down and it remained warm and fairly humid. I set up the black light and had a spectacular number of moths show up. There were hundreds of cutworm moths of various species and some other good moths that have been rarely recorded.

A Broad-tailed Hummingbird that appeared at my feeder one afternoon. I haven’t seen it since.
An Ovenbird at Baldwin Spring.
Macaria adonis, and that’s about all that is known about this moth. BugGuide and Butterflies and Moths of North America had no South Dakota records of this moth until last night, when I photographed several at my black light.
Phaeoura mexicanaria, another moth that is poorly understood. BugGuide had one previous record for South Dakota, Terry Peak area in 2013.
Caripeta aequaliaria. One previous South Dakota record from Terry Peak in 2013.

One reply on “Birds and Moths”

I miss seeing hummingbirds. I’ve always thought oven birds were so pretty and interesting. Good pictures of moths, how odd that so little is known about some of them.

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