Moths on a Wawa's Walls & Windows

Polyphemus Moth

Last week, as I was leaving my local Wawa, I saw three low-lifes looking intently at something on the front wall. One of them picked it off the wall and showed it to the other two. It turned out to be a moth on the wall and one of the  low-lifes turned out to be my brother, who, among his many accomplishments, is an expert, semi-pro lepidopterist. The other two had seen him checking the walls, as he has for many years on his trips into the Pine Barrens, and since it is easier to explain what you're doing than get rid of somebody, he was giving them an impromptu lesson in entomology.

Giant Leopard Moth

It took some doing, but I finally managed to get his attention (he had assumed that I was yet another denizen of the Wawa parking lot) and, after he got over the surprise of seeing me, he showed me what had been on the wall: a Giant Leopard Moth. It wasn't a particularly good specimen since its lower wings were worn and translucent, but, still, it was  impressive to find it on the Wawa wall. At least to me. To him--meh.

My local Wawa, my brother discovered many years ago, is to moths what Mercer Corporate Park or Marshall's Pond is to birds--a spot that inexplicably attracts interesting specimens. He has been picking off the walls moths and other insects (his interests extend deep into beetle family of which there are more species than any other) long before we ever moved down here. He had told me that this was a mothing hot spot but it wasn't until we took a quick tour around the store that I realized just how amazing it was.

One of the aspects of birding that first attracted me was the idea that there was an alternate universe going on all around you, full of birds with their field marks, songs, and behaviors, and if you just looked and studied for a while, you could easily enter that universe. And here, at the Wawa 2 1/2 miles from my house, was a miniverse I could also enter, because, with 10 times more moths than birds, I have no intention of ever trying to learn them. I have an app for that: it's called Email Harry. I'm only going to be interested in the moths on the Wawa walls (and windows). And, according to my brother, I don't have to worry about other Wawas because only this one--whether there is something in the lights, or the texture of the walls, or its proximity to the Pine Barrens, or a combination of those factors he doesn't know--attracts the diversity of moths this one does.

So for the last week, every time I've stopped there I've checked the walls and, using the Harry App, this is some of what I've found:

Imperial Moth

Rosy Maple Moth

Painted Lichen Moth

Black-waved Flannel Moth

Mind you, these are all on the walls of one Wawa! And since the moths are absorbing & storing heat during the day to use as energy for nocturnal flight, they don't move around like those damn birds.

Of course, there's nothing like being with an expert, so this morning I met Harry at Wawa around 6:30 in the morning. That Polyphemus Moth above (a male, you can tell by the antennae) was the highlight, but we also saw a couple of examples of this peculiar specimen:

Datana

which looks like a curled up leaf--great camouflage in most circumstances--on a white concrete wall, not so much.

Harry was reeling off the names of so many moths that I could barely keep up--Banded Tussock Moth, Gracilis Underwing, Spiny Oak Slug Moth, White-blotched Heterocampa. None of these moths are particularly photogenic. To the expert, the big showy butterflies and moths are not at all interesting. It is the small, gray, or brown moths and butterflies, stuff you'd hardly notice as anything more than a bug, that really starts their engines. 

Of course, there are other kinds of insects clinging the walls there (Fish Flies, which are gigantic are prominent) and just because it has a bird in its name, I took this picture of an Owl Fly. No idea why it has this common name.

Owl Fly

At one point, as we were circling the store, the manager came out to see what was up with us--someone thought we might be trying to break in (of course we'd be trying to break in to an open store, of course) and Harry, who has the patter down pat, explained to him that we were just looking at the insect life on his walls. He was cool with that, but then, five minutes later, a Manchester police officer pulled up. There had a been a report of a couple of guys looking confused in the parking lot and, in this area with the all the old folks, they worry about silver alerts, so, after we assured him that we were not, in fact, demented (though, perhaps, a little eccentric), and showed him our i.d's, he allowed as how it was pretty cool what we were doing and gave headquarters a 10-4 on the suspicious old guys of Wawa. I find it ironic that if you're an old guy with lots of tattoos, eating your bagel using the garbage bin as a table talking to your other tattooed cronies in a loud voice, spouting stupid political opinions while other dimwits rev their motorcycle engines and a couple of harridans cackle at their lewd jokes, no one sends for the police, but let a couple of guys stare at a what looks like a blank wall and the cops come a-running.