Winter Break

We are catching a little winter break in Massachusetts this long weekend. In Salem where we havent been since 2011when we passed through on our way up to Maine for vacation after a fee days in Boston. We hadn't left the state of Maine since we moved here in June 2017 so it's a big deal. Banished Jr. hadnt been here since he was old enough to remember much so it's all new. Mrs B and I have always loved the place, though , it does seem very hectic after Maine. Even in mid February. It might have cured Mrs.B of her long-standing wish to 'spend Halloween in Salem one year'. It would be unimaginably busy to us now.  Back in 2011 I bemoaned my failure to find a particular t shirt in my size.

http://banishedsbugs.blogspot.com/2011/07/utterly-random-and-unrelated-jottings.html?m=0

But this time ? Success!

And a matching pin to boot. With a glow in the dark skull!! In addition we found a fine selection of ornaments for our halloween tree while we will add come October.

Purely as an aside, on our visit to the Salem Wax Museum I did find an interesting resemblance. Apparently all the wax figure for this were made in the UK. And it seems to me that the head of the figure of Giles Corey crushed to death for refusing to recognize the right of the court to try him as a witch, might well be a Brit literary waxwork leftover.

Or is it only me who thinks this looks uncannily like GBS?

Early.

Yes , its started early this year. No sooner were the guys off of the garage roof where they were replacing log siding before  winter arrives ohhhh,  than winter arrived. Literally 5 minutes after they packed up down came the first snow. 
It didnt last long and then turned to rain within the hour but it was snow  nonetheless.

The Tomato Thief

We have lots of grey squirrels in our woods here and even more Chipmunks. But we only have the two red squirrels that I see regularly. And today was the first time I managed to get a photo and that only with my phone as I went to check the veggies. Where this miscreant was making off with a tomato.

Moth With A Mohawk

A Large Tolype (Tolype velleda) found on the porch this morning. Quite the spectacular coiffure.

Never Catching Up

These three are Autumn Meadowhawks female and male.

The Black-shouldered Spinyleg.

Canadian Darner male.

Fields of sunflowers stretching acre after acre in Arooostock county.

A Pennsylvania Leatherwing.

The White Admiral 

Common Ringlet.

Clouded Sulphur

And , of course, Puffins off the coast near Milbridge 

How Do The Angels Get To Sleep When The Devil Leaves The Porchlight On?

I know, it's been quiet at Mainly Banished of late. But I've been busy recently keeping  the house up. It's been warm, as seems to have been the case everywhere this summer, unseasonably so. Around 90f is hotter than hell for Maine, especially consistantly, day in day out for a couple of weeks.

I have a bunch of stuff to post from the last few weeks but I thought I'd start with the products of the many warm nights that punctuate the succession of warm days. These have produced a whole long list of moths around the porchlights, either every evening or the leftovers every morning. 

 Of the bigger specimens this is the Waved Sphinx (Ceratomia undulosa)

 Slightly smaller but very striking I think is this Lettered Habrosyne ( Habrosyne scripta) with it's odd 'blank' area at the base of the forewing.

 This looked like another Sphinx to me initially but turned out to be a Black Rimmed Prominent (Pheosia rimosa).

 Much smaller and not totally identified yet is this member of the Haploa genus. They all have striking chocolate and cream patterning like this but within each species there is a lot of pattern variation and that makes ID difficult. A week after posting BugGuide still haven't got a concrete identification.

Smaller again but very pretty is the White-Ribboned Carpet (Mesoleuca ruficillata)

 Another Sphinx species was found resting on the basil on the deck after a long warm evening. This seems to be the Twin-Spotted Sphinx (Smerinthus jamaicensis)

Finally for now here is the day-flying Hummingbird Clearing ( Hemaris thysbe). This particular specimen was very active on the beebalm for a good hour yesterday afternoon
As for the title of today's post, then see below. 
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=htGOO2b12Es

Local Colour

All of these were snapped in the garden over the last week or so. Above is a young female Dot Tailed Whiteface, the male of which was photographed at the Botanical Gardens earlier this month.

And this, here in Maine, is the 

Virginia Ctenucha moth. Never did see one in Virginia that being the very southern edge of it's range.

And then I'm working on an ID for the skipper. Oddly enough I suspect it's a European Skipper .

Below is a young male 12 Spotted Skimmer. The blue spots on the wings are just starting to colour if you look carefully.