Why, when it is actually a large yellow underwing moth of course!
OK, I admit I blew it. My very first post on this site was entitled “Close-up photography of a tussock moth” in which I introduced some of my approaches to macro and close-up photography. One of the points I was trying to make was that if you carefully observe an animal and try to consider its “needs”, then you are more likely to be able to anticipate or even manipulate its movement to allow for better photographs. I used my experience in photographing a tussock moth as an example. All-in-all I think it was a pretty good first post. The problem, as it turns out, is that the tussock moth wasn’t a tussock moth. To be fair, I did note that I hadn’t been able to identify the species. But still I assumed that it was a tussock moth…and we all know what happens when you assume…
In order to finally get a proper identification of the moth I posted its picture on bugguide.net and asked if someone could help. Sure enough, within a couple of days it someone suggested it was a large yellow underwing (Noctua pronuba). And when I googled large yellow underwing [seriously, is that an awkward name or what?], sure enough that’s what it was.
So now I have had to go re-edit my first post title and text. It’s too bad because I really thought that Close-up photography of a tussock moth had a nice ring to it. Somehow Close-up photography of a tussock moth large yellow underwing just isn’t the same. But that’s what it is now. I guess I’ll just have to go out and find a real tussock moth to photograph now!
Here is one last look at our friendly neighbourhood large yellow underwing:
The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus E-620 digital SLR
Lens: Zuiko 35mm macro
Settings: manual exposure (F16 @ 1/125 sec)
Lighting: Olympus RF-11 ring flash (TTL)