Writes John Tschopp, our birding correspondent, “summer is not the time of year in Pemberton known for an abundance of birds. So anything that flutters by on wings draws the attention of the birder.”

One recent evening, in the flowers along the driveway, some flying object was feeding on nectar. It was the size of a hummingbird and acted like one too.

Tschopp grabbed for his camera – and the image revealed a beautiful moth – the white-lined sphinx.

A few tidbits I pulled from wikipedia to round out this sighting:

Hyles lineata, also known as the white-lined sphinx, is a moth of the family Sphingidae. They are sometimes erroneously referred to as the hummingbird moth because of their bird-like size (2-3 inch wingspan) and flight patterns. Hyles lineata is one of the most abundant hawk moths in North America and has a very wide geographic range.^[4] This range extends from Central America to southern Canada through Mexico and most of the United States