Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A couple of weeks ago I trekked out to Silverado Canyon to look for one of Orange County’s famous watering holes. Maybe I’ll tell you more about that someday. In any case, the place where I parked my car turned out to have a lovely little ravine with some pink flowers that made a wonderful backdrop for all the butterflies and other critters flying around. So I stopped to take some pictures.

As I was doing this, I heard a hummingbird zip by. I reset my shutter speed and then followed it with my camera and—it wasn’t a hummingbird at all. It was a white-lined sphinx moth, also known as a “hummingbird moth” because it beats its wings at a ferocious speed and sounds just like a hummingbird.

I got several nice shots of this creature. Check out the proboscis action!

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate