What Patience Finds in the Garden

Scarlet-bodied wasp moth

On two occasions in the past week, I have caught glimpses of unidentified, brightly colored winged creatures in our mountain mint patch. On one of those occasions I managed to capture one slightly out of focus photo of one of the pollinators; on the second occasion I took several not very good photos of another pollinator. And so I waited, returning again and again to the mountain mint patch at various times of the day, taking photos of other butterflies and bugs until I was finally rewarded: the mysterious pollinators returned, and this time I was prepared. I moved quietly. I observed. I stealthily took photo after photo. Then I would take a break, walking around the yard or going inside for a cup of tea or to read the latest news or to finish a craft project or other task. After a while, I would return to the garden with my camera.

The first brightly colored pollinator I identified as a Scarlet-bodied wasp moth, a very beautiful and vividly-colored pollinator, with a bright red thorax and abdomen and metallic blue dots. (See: Butterflies and Moths of North America: Attributes of Cosmosoma myrodora.)

Scarlet-bodied wasp moth (Cosmosoma myrodora)

Scarlet-bodied wasp moth

What a beautiful surprise this creature was among the gray-green leaves of the mountain mint. After a few minutes of stalking this colorful pollinator, I was excited to see another Scarlet-bodied wasp moth settling on a mint flower. I turned my attention to this second moth, and was so intent that  I almost overlooked a second surprise, a close encounter between one of the moths and a green spider, which I think is a kind of crab spider.

close encounter

The photo above captures the beginning of the encounter, as the wasp approached the leaf on which the spider was sitting. The two creatures actually made contact, but that photo didn't turn out so well--there was fluttering, reacting, retreating, and a blur of tiny limbs. The spider won the encounter; the moth flew to another flower.

The next day, I got a closer look at the second unidentified, brightly-colored pollinator.  It looked like a wasp, but also had characteristics of a moth. I think that this one, too, is in the wasp moth category. The bright colors are probably a kind of camouflage to warn away predators.

another wasp moth

Patience has yet to reward me with the successful attainment of another goal: to get a good photo of every pollinator that visits the mountain mint patch. The smaller waspy-type bees fly very quickly, in a zig-zag pattern. They are easily startled, and I'm working with a point and shoot camera with an automatic focus. The little bee below is an example of these flighty pollinators. In my many attempts to get an in-focus photograph of this bee, I managed just this one.

Am I anthropomorphizing if I suggest that some bugs just seem to have more settled or less-fearful personalities than others? I can get lots of shots of one butterfly and none of another. After two days of trying to get a good photo of a yellow and black swallowtail, I finally managed to do so, while succeeding in shot after shot of a blue and black swallowtail.

This morning I chased (very quietly and as sneakily as possible) a red dragonfly all over the back yard and failed to get one good photograph, while a green and yellow-tan dragonfly posed peacefully on a bamboo stake as I depressed the snapshot button again and again. If I startled him, he (or she) would fly away and then come right back to perch on the bamboo stake. I spoke to him. He moved his little mouth in return.

The mountain mint patch buzzes with bees at mid-day. Most of those are large bumblebees and smaller honey bees, but among those more familiar bees, the large black bee stands out. This is, I think, a species of carpenter bee: Xylocopa tabaniformis
.

black bee-- Xylocopa

black bee--Xylocopa

But occasionally, in the middle of all that activity, I will catch sight of a bee, perhaps half-hidden under a leaf, taking a break from its duties of collecting pollen. All the other bees seem so frantic, buzzing from flower to flower, sometimes almost flying into one another, that a resting bee at first appears ill, out of sorts. But after a few minutes, it will fly away, restored.  I have come to care about the lives of bees.

resting bee