A Birding Boat Trip Around the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel

On February 16^th I went on a 4-hour boat trip organized by Geoff Giles and the Williamsburg Bird Club. During that four hours, our boat went to all four of the manmade islands along the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (CBBT), and ventured into some deeper waters a little to the east of the bridge looking for seabirds, waterfowl, and whatever other wildlife was present. Our trip had originally been scheduled for January, but severe weather prevented the boat from going out as planned. That turned out to be a blessing, because although it was a bit cold on February 16, it was sunny, the wind was not a problem, and we had a wonderful time!

The CBBT is known nationally for its great birding; I knew about it years ago when I lived on the west coast. During spring and fall bird migrations, songbirds that are flying across the Bay and become tired frequently land on the islands to rest, especially during rough weather. Seabirds that usually remain far offshore will often be blown closer to the coast during storms, and the CBBT islands are an excellent place to scan for them. And during the winter months, the islands are an outstanding place to scope for wintering waterfowl, gannets, loons, grebes, gulls and other types of birds. The photo at the top of this blog post is of a male Red-breasted Merganser that I photographed during the boat trip. This species is a common winter visitor to the Bay. The female's plumage is quite different from the male's; the photo below is of a female that I photographed earlier this winter at Fort Monroe.

When I moved to Chesapeake in 2000, anyone could bird from all four of the islands as long as they registered and obtained  a letter of consent to do so for that calendar year. Unfortunately, after 9/11 the authorities decided this was a security issue, and now they only allow people to stop at the southernmost island, unless you pay them $50 per hour for a security guard to accompany you to the other three islands. That’s a big loss for birders and bird study. So the Williamsburg Bird Club boat trip was a great way to explore waters around the islands that are not normally accessible. Here are some of the things that we saw:

Scoters are one of our most common wintering sea ducks. There are three kinds, and we saw all three (all occur regularly along our coast and in the Bay in the winter). In the photo above, the one on the left with the big orange knobby thing on his bill is a male Black Scoter, and the one on the right is a male Surf Scoter. Below is a better picture of a Surf Scoter, called the "clown" of the duck family, and a photo of the less common White-winged Scoter; this one is a female.

Harlequin Ducks are fairly rare winter visitors to Virginia; some years we see none. When they do get this far south, the most reliable place to spot one is usually along the CBBT islands near the rocks. Harlequins are spectacular little ducks with very colorful plumage and, yes, a harlequin-like pattern. The male duck below was some distance from our boat and my photo isn't great, but you can still make out his beautiful markings.

Birds are not the only life along the CBBT islands! Most winters there are a few Harbor Seals to be seen, and during our boat trip we found a dozen or more near island #3 (below). They are a joy to observe, because they are active, gregarious, cute, and curious about the people who are watching them!

Long-tailed Ducks, formerly called "Oldsquaws," are another sea duck that we only see during the winter months. In my opinion, they are one of our most beautiful ducks. The males and females look quite different, and as is usually the case in the bird world, the male is the more spectacular. Below is a photo of a male that I took on the boat trip; following that is a photo of a female I took earlier this winter.

The bird below might not look all that impressive to you, but it was the highlight of our trip. It's name is "Razorbill" for pretty obvious reasons, and it is a seabird of the alcid family that is rarely seen in Virginia. A few usually winter far offshore and can only be found, with luck, on pelagic boat trips far from the mainland. This winter has been a banner year for them because of all the winter storms that we have had, and large numbers have been seen south of their normal winter range. And on several days in January and February, large numbers were seen from shore in Virginia. This was the hoped-for "target bird" of the trip for most birders, and we were rewarded with about a half dozen of them in the waters north of Ft. Story.

Most non-birders think that "a seagull is a seagull is a seagull." There is actually no such thing as a "seagull," rather, there are many different species of gull worldwide. It takes a lot of practice to tell one species from the next; gulls are different sizes, have different shades of gray in their mantles, different wingtip patterns, different leg and bill colors, and many more field marks that distinguish the various species. And that's just for the adults birds! It takes anywhere from two to four years for a gull to reach its adult plumage, and until they do, they go through various juvenile and subadult plumages that can be very confusing. 

The common gulls along Virginia's coast in all seasons are the Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, and Great Black-backed Gull. Laughing Gulls, which have a black head, usually migrate south of Hampton Roads for the winter and start returning in mid-March to breed (look for them in Food Lion parking lots soon!). Far less common on Virginia's coast, although increasing in numbers, is the Lesser Black-backed Gull. We found several of them in the gull flocks that followed our boat. Two of the photos I took of them are below:

Our boat returned to the Dockside Marina in Lynnhaven Inlet in the early afternoon. The marina itself was a good place to look for birds from the docks. We saw American Oystercatchers out on the sandy islands, geese, Brown Pelicans and cormorants (both Double-crested and Great) in addition to the wintering waterfowl:

American Oystercatcher

 Male Hooded Merganser at Dockside Marina

 Male Bufflehead, one of our most common wintering ducks 

A group of Buffleheads along the CBBT

This was a wonderful trip, and I intend to join the Williamsburg Bird Club again next year. Several other boat trips operate out of Virginia Beach, including the popular winter wildlife boat trips operated by the Virginia Aquarium. The Virginia Beach Audubon Society often arranges trips, and some are usually planned during Virginia Beach's annual Winter Wildlife Festival. In some years, whales are seen on these trips, but this year the waters were too cold for them (on the day of our trip, the water temperature was 36 degrees!). I highly recommend any one these trips to anyone who is interested in exploring our local winter wildlife!

WINTER BIRDS IN TIDEWATER AND THE OUTER BANKS

Over the past month, I’ve gone everywhere from Virginia Beach to Chincoteague to Pea Island to my own back yard chasing both common and uncommon birds, and testing out my new camera and lens (hooray!) on just about everything that moves. It’s been a lot of fun, despite some cold and nasty weather.

The photo above is of a male Eastern Bluebird. During the first week of January I went to the Owl Creek area by the Virginia Aquarium and found several pairs of these beautiful birds right by the parking lot. They were all “puffed up” because of the cold temperatures, and were very actively feeding.

I also found a Brown Creeper there (below), which has been a nemesis bird of mine to photograph. These inconspicuous little guys creep up trees looking for food in the crevices of the tree bark. Once they get to the top, they dive back down to the bottom of another tree and start the process again. They’re hard to see because they blend right into the bark (and, like woodpeckers, they usually stay on the side of the tree opposite of where you are), so your best bet of finding one is catching it in motion. These birds only visit our area in the winter.

Rudee Inlet in Virginia Beach has hosted an extremely rare sea duck this winter, a King Eider. It has been there for over a month and is still in the area. The normal winter range of this arctic duck is well north of us, so this bird has caused quite a stir in the local birding community. The Rudee Inlet bird (below) is an immature male bird that you might not find terribly impressive, but I’ve also posted a photo of an adult male, courtesy of www.allaboutbirds.org, which is what our bird will look like in another year:

                                               

      Adult King Eider photographed by Kevin T. Karlson and posted on www.allaboutbirds.org 

I've visited Chincoteague a couple times this winter. Like everyone else, I was hoping to see one of the Snowy Owls that have been sited there; I tanked on the Snowies this time, but Chincoteague always has something interesting to offer birders. This time it was the Snow Geese, thousands of them near Tom’s Cove. The sheer numbers of these noisy geese were breathtaking, and small groups continued to fly in to join them, gleaming bright white against a blue sky:

Kingfishers are notoriously hard to photograph. If you see one perched and try to approach it or slow down your car to see it, it will always fly away. That's why it was so fun and rewarding to find this very cooperative female Belted Kingfisher (below) on the Chincoteague trip. She stayed in the bushes along the ditch that borders the road leading to Tom's Cove, periodically diving for fish and then returning to the same little patch and posing for her portrait:

Whenever I go to Chincoteague or the Eastern Shore, I stop at the southernmost island of the Bay Bridge-Tunnel to scan the bay for winter waterfowl. The island is a reliable place to look for Long-tailed Ducks, Red-breasted Mergansers, Scoters, Cormorants, Gannets, Loons and other water birds in season. Here is a photo of a Double-crested Cormorant sunning itself on the rocks along the island; it's a very common bird and often overlooked, but is beautiful nonetheless (in its own way):

The most common duck in the Bay is usually the Bufflehead, a beautiful, iridescent little duck that can be found on practically any body of water in the winter:

   The female Bufflehead is on the left, the more spectacular male is on the right.

 A couple of weeks ago I went to North Carolina’s Outer Banks and Pea Island to bird for a day. The weather was terrible – dark and very windy-- but there are always good birds to see there, and I managed to get a few photos that I like:

It was so dark and colorless on the day I was there that these American Avocets in winter plumage look like they were photographed in black-and-white! One friend told me that they look like they're sword-fighting with their long bills.

The Outer Banks are only a hundred miles or so to the south of us, but they host substantially larger numbers of many wintering birds than we see in Virginia, including these White Ibis and the Avocets, above.

The gorgeous Northern Pintail is a common wintering duck in this region. Bodie Lighthouse can be a good place to see them and study their intricate plumage up close.                  

The Long-tailed Duck, formerly name the Oldsquaw, winters along the Atlantic coast, becoming far less common south of North Carolina. This female was at Oregon Inlet.    

   Who can resist taking pictures of the American Oystercatcher? No matter how many I've taken, I always have to try for more.                         

I've made a couple of visits lately to a new park in Portsmouth on Victory Blvd. called Paradise Creek Natural Area. A fellow birder was posting reports on the Virginia Birds listserv about the different kinds of birds he was seeing there, sparrows in particular, and I gave chase. The park is a nice little mitigation area in the middle of Portsmouth and South Norfolk industrial areas, and I think it will attract more birds over the years as they discover where it is. On one of our snowy days last month I went there and found a "feeding frenzy" of birds eating berries, particularly Cedar Waxwings, Hermit Thrushes and Robins. Here are photos of a Cedar Waxwing (first) and a Hermit Thrush enjoying the bounty:

On the home front, I've enjoyed testing out my new camera on some of my regular “yard birds.” My favorites, of course, are the Baltimore Orioles that are wintering for the third year in a row in my humble yard. I’m pretty sure that it’s the same birds returning here each year; they remember where the grape jelly is! (During our snow days, I was putting out a large jar of Smuckers every day because the Starlings also discovered it).

One of the adult male Baltimore Orioles wintering in my yard.

I do enjoy winter birding far more than summer birding; there are so many more opportunities for bird photography and for finding unusual and out-or-range birds. This winter in particular has been spectacular, with record-breaking invasions of northern birds that we do not usually see, including Snowy Owls, White-winged Scoters, Razorbills, the King Eider and others. It has been one for the books, one that birders will be talking about for years to come, and I plan to continue go out birding every chance I get.

Snowy Owls: The Invasion of the Century!

Even if you're not a birder, you probably know what a Snowy Owl looks like. Harry Potter's owl Hedwig is a Snowy Owl, a huge white owl with bright golden yellow eyes. Snowies are Arctic birds that are at home on the arctic tundra and are not often seen in the lower 48 states, although some are usually seen in our northernmost states during the winter months. This year, however, is different -- it's what we call an "invasion year," when Snowies move further south and are seen in places where they are considered very rare, including Virginia.

Bryan Watts of the Center for Conservation Biology explains this phenomenon very well on the CCB's blog
(http://www.ccbbirds.org/2013/12/23/snowy-owls-enjoy-virginia-beaches). He writes:

"The winter of 2013 will be remembered as a historic irruption year for snowy owls throughout northeastern North America. Birds are being reported in numbers not seen in a century or more. Such irruption events are triggered by productivity booms on arctic breeding grounds. Snowies are opportunistic breeders with the capability of producing large broods when food conditions allow. Hatch-year birds have yet to develop the hunting skills required to withstand arctic winters and move to easier hunting grounds within lower latitudes during the fall months. During irruption years the large numbers of young move south out of the arctic like a wave. In boom years like 2013 this wave can be like a tsunami."

Virginia birders have been on an adrenalin rush, locating and photographing Snowy Owls. There have been maybe a dozen sitings so far this winter, both along the coast and inland. Not only are Snowies rare, but they are also large, stately, gorgeous, and very impressive, making them one of the "most wanted" birds on a birder's wish list.

The Snowy Owl at the top of this page is one that I photographed at Craney Island in Portsmouth when I went there on a field trip with members of the Virginia Beach Audubon Society, led by Steve and Julie Couri. We did not discover this bird on our own; it had been previously reported and we were hoping it had stayed put long enough for us to get a look. Not only did we get "a look," we got once-in-a-lifetime looks at this magnificent bird. It was a great day!

I want to share photos that other birders have taken of Snowy Owls throughout Virginia and, in the photo below, from Buxton, N.C. near the Hatteras lighthouse. Keith Roberts of Chesapeake took this beautiful photo on December 2nd; this was one of the first Snowies to show up in our region. (I planned to chase it too, but the Bonner Bridge closed the day before I could go).

Victor Laubach of the Augusta Bird Club in Waynesboro photographed two different Snowies, one in Dayton, and one in Bridgewater (photos of both are below). He writes:

"The one in Dayton was found by a local person but the birder/photographer who reported it was Kevin Shank. I read the rare bird alert on my email around 1pm that day and I dropped everything and drove there. That bird was pretty dark and was either and adult female or a 1st-year male because of the dark barring with white bib. It’s difficult to tell for sure. It was perched all day on a wooden post in the back of a Mennonite Church."

"The one in Bridgewater was found by me along with Josh Laubach (my son) and Gabriel Mapel as we were driving over highway 81 on Cecil Wampler Rd. Just before we got over the highway my son shouted out "Snowy Owl, Snowy Owl!!!", whereupon I hit the brakes, backed up and the bird was sitting only 150 feet away on a fence at the edge of a cornfield. It sat there for a few hours and then took flight twice, landing in the cut cornfield both times. This bird appears to me to be a male, either adult or immature. It's hard for me to tell. It's pretty light with very faint barring on breast and more apparent dark spots on back, wings and tail. This is a different bird that I photographed in Dayton on 12/3/2013, which had heavy barring on breast and top of head."

William Leigh also photographed the Bridgewater owl -- in fact, he lives in Bridgewater. He wrote:

"There have been numerous reports of  Snowy Owl here in Rockingham county this Winter. I managed to miss all the previous birds and was getting very eager to see a Snowy here in my own backyard so to speak. Finally I got a call from a friend on the December 27th  that a Snowy was sighted just 3 miles from house! When I arrived the bird was sitting on a post right beside interstate I-81. Several hours later with dusk upon us and the light  fading  fast the bird became more active and at one point flew directly overhead. Over the last several days the bird has become more active right at dusk."

Below are his photos; one of my favorites is the owl sitting on a post right on the freeway. It's just so absurd! The second is a beautiful photo he got later when the owl flew over his head, a very hard shot to "freeze" and get in good focus. He did a great job:

Barbara Houston is well known to Virginia birders as a prolific photographer, and she shares links to many of her photos on the Virginia Birding listserv and on her Fyne Fotography website (http://www.fynefoto.com). She found and photographed her Snowy Owl at Chincoteague -- after three other unsuccessful trips there! Here is her report and her outstanding photo:

"[My favorite photo] has to be this one, the first owl we saw on the day...and the lighthouse in the background! We had previously visited the Chincoteague beach 3 other times with no luck when we arrived around 8am on Thursday morning.  We were greeted right away with a snowy owl sitting near the parking area at the south end of the beach while several other photographers watched.  We parked a hundred yards or so away and walked slowly down the beach until we were positioned to take some pictures.  The bird was gorgeous and all that we had imagined.  It sat and gave us good looks for about twenty minutes before moving down to the off road area of the beach.  I was fortunate to get this shot as it took off with the lighthouse in the background."

The rest of the photos, below, are of the Snowy Owl that was at Craney Island, and all were taken on that Virginia Beach Audubon field trip arranged by the Couri's (thank you again, Steve and Julie!) You'll see different "faces" of the owl in these photos, from comical to sleepy to stately. I've included two photos each from Steve Couri, Julie Couri, Keith Roberts, and myself, so I hope you don't tire of them. But who would ever tire of a Snowy Owl!?

The two photos above were taken by Steve Couri; the two below were taken by his wife Julie.                    

Keith Roberts took the following two photos, and writes: "These were taken on the Craney Island trip with the Virginia Beach Audubon. This Owl was located on the north side of the island. I think we woke it up as it was yawning."

And last, two (okay, three..) more photos of my own. And let me take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year and "Peace on Earth." This sentiment is usually accompanied by a picture of a white dove, but I think the Snowy Owl is much better, don't you?

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher in Virginia, a Peregrine and Some Butterflies

It has really been far too long since I posted anything here. My last post, in August, was about some of Virginia’s damselflies, and I promised to write about the dragonflies next, but suddenly it is the end of November, it’s cold and rainy and windy, and it seems totally inappropriate to choose dragonflies as a topic now.

I have not taken any good field trips this fall, and did not have a singular, amazing outdoor experience to write about; most of my time lately was spent re-roofing my house, remodeling an old bathroom, and dealing with things that required me to stay home much of the time. So I’ll give you a little capsule, a hodgepodge of nature experiences I've had this fall between the roofers and plumbers and such.

The photos above are of  the best bird I saw this fall, without a doubt (“best” in birder-speak means “rare.”) This is a juvenile Scissor-tailed Flycatcher that someone spotted on Virginia’s Eastern Shore in October. I gave chase on the first day I could, and was able to photograph it.  I was not able to get close to the bird; it was on private property, and I will not trespass, nor will I knowingly get so close to a bird that I bother it. So this was a case where I hand-held my long lens, held my breath and tried my best not to move or shake, hoping for the sharpest photo possible under the circumstances! The Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is common in the Great Plains but is extremely rare in Virginia. This individual is a juvenile that was hatched this summer, and it simply migrated in the wrong direction; it went east instead of south. Do a Google image search for this bird and see what this guy will look like when he's grown; you will be amazed at the size of the adult bird’s tail!

I went to the Eastern Shore on a dark day in November with a friend, hoping for some vagrant birds. We had no luck with rarities, but on the return trip, I spotted a Peregrine Falcon perched on a light post. After slamming on my brakes and backing up down the highway, I got some photos, but they were all dark and muddy looking because of the weather. I've never had photo-editing software other than the basic tools that come free with the camera (I've always been unreasonably stubborn about not using “tricks” or "cheating"  to get a better photo than what I took). But my friend took one of the photos and did some work on it with PhotoShop, and when he sent me the result, it blew me away! I immediately decided that I must trash all my principles, buy Lightroom, and start learning how to use it to improve my photos. Here are the before and after results of the Peregrine:

As I do every summer, I did raise and release some butterflies in my yard from caterpillars that I search for and find on the native plants in my garden. I've talk about this before; I collect the caterpillars and house them in screen cages in my garage, where I feed them at least twice a day. After a couple of weeks of doing nothing but eating and pooping, the caterpillar morphs into its chrysalis stage and remains dormant until it emerges as an adult butterfly. This process requires tending to the caterpillars at least twice a day, and is actually a main cause of my not being able to go out on field trips; if you’re not there to clean the cages and feed the caterpillars on time, they will not survive.

Over the past few years I have raised and released over 6000 butterflies of over 20 different species, which is very rewarding. The survival rate of caterpillars in the wild is extremely low, so raising and releasing results in a few more butterflies out there in the neighborhood and the world. This year I was thrilled to raise and release two new species that had never laid eggs in my yard before, the Viceroy butterfly and the Giant Swallowtail.

Freshly-hatched Viceroy butterfly. That's its chrysalis on the right, from which it just emerged.

First the Viceroy: Different butterfly species are dedicated to specific kinds of plants (called “host plants”) when it comes to laying their eggs; they only lay them on the foodplants that the hatched caterpillars will eat.  I had never planted the Viceroy’s host plant before; I had seen a few adults nectaring at my flowering trees and shrubs, but had never found caterpillars until I found them this year on my new Corkscrew Willow. My father died a couple of years ago, and as a memento, I took some of the Corkscrew Willow cuttings from the flower arrangements at his funeral, wrapped them in wet tissue and flew home with them in my suitcase. Once I got home I put them back in water until they rooted, then I planted them in dirt. This year they were large enough to put outdoors in big pots, and they grew into trees that are 6-8 feet tall now. Corkscrew Willows are one of the Viceroy’s host plants, and one or two adults found them and laid their eggs.  Success! (If you plant it, they will come….)

The other new butterfly species to lay eggs in my yard this year was the Giant Swallowtail (above). This is a southern species that is common in Florida but is decidedly uncommon in Virginia; they do not even occur here most years. One day I noticed a bunch of tiny, newly-hatched caterpillars on a small little Rue plant that I had in a pot. I presumed they were common Black Swallowtail caterpillars, which eat Rue, and I checked them every day or so to see whether they were running out of food and needed to be moved to my Parsley or Fennel plants, which they also eat. I finally noticed that they looked “different,” and realized that these were, unbelievably, about 60 Giant Swallowtail caterpillars! Giants also eat Rue, but not Parsley and Fennel, so I was out of food for them. I called my butterfly friends immediately, and they saved the day when they brought me a potted Citrus tree; in Florida, citrus trees are the most common Giant Swallowtail host plant. I gave away most of the caterpillars, but kept about a dozen that fed on the citrus tree and then went into chrysalis. Most later emerged as adult butterflies, like the one above.

 Young Giant Swallowtail caterpillar. They look like bird poop to predators, 

which is a very effective defense mechanism.

Here he is, several days older. He has lost his slick sheen, but

still looks rather distasteful!

 If bothered, these caterpillars attempt to scare away whatever is bothering them 

by displaying their red osmeterium, or "horns."

 Unlike our other black swallowtail species, the 

Giant Swallowtail's underwings and body are yellow.

Some of the Giants went to Lauren Tafoya, who manages the butterfly house at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens. She does an amazing job there, raising and releasing thousands of butterflies of many species each year. She had a few Giants at the Gardens already, but the ones she added from my yard will expand their genetic base and obviously increase the population. If you go to the Botanical Gardens next spring, you might see some of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the butterfly that laid eggs on the little Rue plant in my little yard.

A Virginia Rarity at the Chesapeake Central Library: A Black Witch Moth!

The Chesapeake Central Library where I work held its annual "Monsterfest" program on October 5. On that day the library was filled with horror and supernatural enthusiasts, vendors, speakers, and panelists, many of them dressed up as their favorite monsters, ghouls, manga characters, and an impressive array of otherworldly creatures. It's was quite an event!

The evening before Monsterfest (coincidence...?) a huge, dark moth appeared on the library building and it remained there for the duration of Monsterfest. It remained inconspicuous in the shadows, but one of our library staff saw it and showed it to me. I had never seen anything like it, in person or in any Virginia nature publications, and I had never heard of any Virginia moth that was as big as this one. Confused, I did some research and identified it as -- are you ready? -- a Black Witch Moth! It is also sometimes call a Bat Moth because it is so big and dark that it can look like a bat. How appropriate for Monsterfest day! This individual is an adult male, and he is in surprisingly good condition considering the distance he traveled to get here:

What makes this moth's appearance even more "spooky" is that it is extremely rare in Virginia, with only a handful of historic records of its occurrence here. The moth's home is in Central America and Mexico, and in most years they move into southern Texas. Once the rainy season hits Texas in June, the moths sometimes wander further north into the United States and are mostly recorded in Texas, Florida, and the far southern states through October.

During outbreak years when the moths disperse north in larger numbers than usual, a few individuals have been recorded as far north as Canada, although they still are extremely rare north of Texas. As stated above, Virginia has only a small handful of historic records of the moth's occurrence. A few might enter Virginia every few years, but only 3 or 4 (?) have ever been documented.

So the Black Witch that came to the Chesapeake Library for Monsterfest was a very big deal! I photographed it and have sent photos and details to Steven M. Roble, Ph.D., staff zoologist at the 

Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, and to a Texas entomologist who tracks the movements of this species and requests reports of any sitings outside of Texas. 

I can't emphasize enough the startling size of this moth species. It has a wingspan of about 7 inches and is the largest moth that occurs anywhere in North America. The photo above doesn't do it justice, so one of our staff measured the bricks on our building and Photoshopped a ruler to scale next to the moth, to give some perspective:

There is much legend and folklore associated with the Black Witch Moth, undoubtedly because of its size and dark, murky coloration. One of the legends in Mexico is that a sick person will die if the moth enters his house.  A variation on this legend in southern Texas is that death only occurs if the moth flies in and visits all four corners of the house. These legends have evolved into a joke that if a Black Witch Moth flies over your head, you will lose your hair! Another legend: if you see one of these moths, it means someone has cursed you.

There are some "good fortune" legends as well; in Hawaii, the moth is the embodiment of a loved one who has just died. In the Bahamas, it is said that if a moth lands on you, you will come into money. And in South Texas, some say that you will win the lottery if a moth lands above your door and stays a while. 

I looked for "our" moth again the day after Monsterfest, but it had disappeared during the night. It was a real treat to have hosted such a rare and beautiful creature, if only for a day or two.