South Tampa sighting - not sure what type yet

[Lori Maloney]

At dusk last weekend I moved my Mona Lavendar plants from the porch to the ground hoping to catch some rain. I was walking away from the plants and heard a buzz near my head, I thought it was a palmetto bug and almost swatted at it but I saw it was a tiny hummie. My husband came out of the house and I called him over to see the bird. We watched it for about 5 minutes busily going from flower to flower. It was not shy, we stood within 3 feet on the porch. We could clearly see that it was a hummie not a moth but the coloring was almost a maroon and it was only about 3 inches long. We put up a feeder the next day and we will post a picture as soon as we get one. I recently planted several red hibiscus plants near my front walkway but it was the mona lavendar that it was feeding from.

[Steve Backes]

Lori,
It sounds like you're seeing sphinx moths. Visit the sphinx moth board at floridahummingbirds.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=moths to read discussions and see photos of some moths. Keep in mind that most moth observations are in low light and don't allow for seeing detail. Many of the "hummingbird" identifications are based on the flight pattern which is very similar to a hummingbird and not moth-like.

I can't say what you saw having not seen it myself. I have heard of a few occasions of hummingbirds flying after dark and they do fly just before sun up. You'll need to get a better look at it so that you can see detail like its bill shape, throat pattern, and the tail pattern.

Steve