![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijaTyz2veyaYAeb6HqnawhC1RTGix-XIXp4b7CwSvkVVMmWJ1VyS3O41H9N-8Q5O8V_tQ9EC-YpId3E9C98W4jjkEG6JRbOypEVoQIbQg-MItreQAUBJpAytAbG2LoCSqAVySHFld1oLE/s400/_KS10178_lr.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6VHxnTGZbVTnuGxHz2AiPUIsE8vUYUGonNf_972c2bzjyx35z2WC8sNv4kKeaJMJwkSaHKGoS_F2GQk6vdSgNHfItmPfGx1X3dm0MLIAOWZ_Y7E0XkrCl4RZ0_zboON27j9zWDYXl6RM/s400/_KS10177_lr.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4CkY2Zl8e5Jg7bsS2-DuiwvfaTCWim_6LzamQ07pcNkQ7rWp_Hi3qpZHYQifMtYz8kgvqTDA-j-wwLjvMhTE7eZNOfEh1U0Iq9NnWl01WQlexG8HqOqJAa00cHjjfSt-rJpgcj6enHbk/s400/_KS10123_lr.jpg)
I took a few minutes today to photograph one of my daily visitors to my backyard. I haven't yet confirmed if this is the Hummingbird Clearwing Moth or the Snowberry Hummingbird Clearwing Moth. Nonetheless, it's a beautiful creature to watch. It's extremely difficult to photograph since they are so small (about 2 inches tall - which is typical of the Snowberry species), but it's also very fast. It moves and hovers similar to a hummingbird but at a more nervous pace. It's wingbeat is about 30 beats per second, which is impressive for a moth. The ones I photographed last year were about 1-2 inches larger (considerably larger).
Keep in mind, I'm manually focusing my lens to capture these...Here are just a few from today. To give you a sense of size, the flowers you see are about the size of a thumbtack.