Thursday, June 21, 2007

Io Moth & The Mad Kingbird

My father owns his own company where my sister and brother also work. The yard there is near a large expanse of woods and a pond. My family always seems to find something interesting there. They have nesting Prairie Warblers, foxes living in the back, and snakes in the warehouse. A few weeks ago, my future brother-in-law (who also works there, sense a pattern?) found a large yellow moth on the side of the building. Pictured below is that moth. It's an Io Moth (Automeris io), one of the silk moths (Saturniidae).



On Sunday, my sister had an interesting visitor. The window to the office has a reflective coating on it to reduce sun glare which creates an almost mirrored surface. Last year an Indigo Bunting visited and this year an Eastern Kingbird has been visiting. I assume they love looking at their reflection, like my parakeets do. I'm convinced that all birds look mad when pictured head-on. I love this pic.



A shout-out to my sister, Mary, for providing the pics!

7 comments:

LauraHinNJ said...

That kingbird is having a bad hair day - for sure!

Are those Io moths common? I've never seen one.

Patrick B. said...

I really don't know. I've never seen one either, but their host plants are pretty cosmopolitan and include tons of different trees and shrubs. One web site says it can be quite rare in parts of its range, but I couldn't find any specifics on NJ distribution.

Anonymous said...

That kingbird is certainly intense. Then again, they usually are. You don't get crowned the tyrant of tyrants by taking it easy.

Anonymous said...

Very cool and that is my kind of angle for a photo of a bird! BRAVO! PS: Love the IO moth, they are fave's of mine also!

RuthieJ said...

That's such a cute picture of the kingbird. You should do a post of more pictures showing "birds with attitude"

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

MWHAHAHA! That's a "DON KING-BIRD"!!!

Larry said...

That's a grreat capture of the Kingbird! It would have fit right in with the last post I did. I've heard that Kingbirds can be real tough guys-attacking hawks and whatnot.