Amherst Giant!
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Josh
Aug 19, 2026, 5:37:55 PM (8 days ago) Aug 19
to MassLep
Howdy folks,
It seems to be that time of year again! The dog and I stepped out the front door at the perfect moment, just before a Giant Swallowtail winged through our front yard waist-high. The only sad part was that it didn’t stay in view long enough for me to even reach for my camera, much less actually take a photo…
This is, I think, my fifth Giant in our yard near Amethyst Brook. The others:
August 11, 2025
August 7, 2022
September 3, 2019
August 31, 2017
So, there definitely seems to be a pattern, or a peak at least. FWIW, we moved here in August 2009.
Other butterflies here today, in addition to the Giant:
Cabbage White 4+
GS Fritillary 1-2
Monarch 1
Peck’s Skipper 1
A particularly memorable moth came by yesterday: a Black-and-Yellow Lichen Moth (Lycomorpha pholus). My photos from yesterday are still in the camera, so here’s one from a few years ago, just so folks who don’t know the species can see why it’s memorable:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/64793276
The woods along the brook have been loaded with Calopteron sp. net-winged beetles for the past month or so; those beetles have a very similar color scheme to the moth’s, and are packed with nasty-tasting chemicals, making them a nice model for the moth to mimic.
Our yard has been *loaded* with pollinators this summer, between my wife’s fennel and lavender blooming, lots of Queen Anne’s Lace, the Monardas and Echinacea that are almost finished now, and the goldenrod just getting started. My brain can’t even hold the number of different species of bees, wasps, flies, beetles, moths, butterflies, and other insects whirling around out there.
Cheers,
Josh
Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D.
Amherst, MA
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/opihiman
https://www.facebook.com/opihi
Writer/compiler, Bird Observer
https://www.birdobserver.org/
Columnist, “Earth Matters”
https://www.gazettenet.com/search?bodysearch=earth+matters
https://www.hitchcockcenter.org/category/earth-matters/
Vice-president, Hampshire Bird Club
https://hampshirebirdclub.org/
Northeast Chapter head, Dragonfly Society of the Americas
https://www.dragonflysocietyamericas.org/northeastdsa
It seems to be that time of year again! The dog and I stepped out the front door at the perfect moment, just before a Giant Swallowtail winged through our front yard waist-high. The only sad part was that it didn’t stay in view long enough for me to even reach for my camera, much less actually take a photo…
This is, I think, my fifth Giant in our yard near Amethyst Brook. The others:
August 11, 2025
August 7, 2022
September 3, 2019
August 31, 2017
So, there definitely seems to be a pattern, or a peak at least. FWIW, we moved here in August 2009.
Other butterflies here today, in addition to the Giant:
Cabbage White 4+
GS Fritillary 1-2
Monarch 1
Peck’s Skipper 1
A particularly memorable moth came by yesterday: a Black-and-Yellow Lichen Moth (Lycomorpha pholus). My photos from yesterday are still in the camera, so here’s one from a few years ago, just so folks who don’t know the species can see why it’s memorable:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/64793276
The woods along the brook have been loaded with Calopteron sp. net-winged beetles for the past month or so; those beetles have a very similar color scheme to the moth’s, and are packed with nasty-tasting chemicals, making them a nice model for the moth to mimic.
Our yard has been *loaded* with pollinators this summer, between my wife’s fennel and lavender blooming, lots of Queen Anne’s Lace, the Monardas and Echinacea that are almost finished now, and the goldenrod just getting started. My brain can’t even hold the number of different species of bees, wasps, flies, beetles, moths, butterflies, and other insects whirling around out there.
Cheers,
Josh
Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D.
Amherst, MA
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/opihiman
https://www.facebook.com/opihi
Writer/compiler, Bird Observer
https://www.birdobserver.org/
Columnist, “Earth Matters”
https://www.gazettenet.com/search?bodysearch=earth+matters
https://www.hitchcockcenter.org/category/earth-matters/
Vice-president, Hampshire Bird Club
https://hampshirebirdclub.org/
Northeast Chapter head, Dragonfly Society of the Americas
https://www.dragonflysocietyamericas.org/northeastdsa
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