Police Car Moths on Goldenrod

"This is a fairly large moth with a wingspan of up to 50 mm. The wings are jet black with large white patches between the black scaled veins. As well, there are two orange patches of hairs on either side of the thorax, right behind the head. It is this colour combination, that of an old style police car, that gives it its name. Larvae are hairy and black with yellow and blue markings. The Police Car Moth is found throughout the province in or near forested areas. Adults fly throughout July and early August."

From www.royalalbertamuseum.ca

"A common western North American species found from southern British Columbia across to western Manitoba and south to northern New Mexico. Adults are diurnal and are found nectaring on flowers. There are four other species in this genus, however this is the only one that occurs in Alberta. Wingspan is 46 - 50 mm; various habitats, but not on the prairies; caterpillar's diet is Lungwort."

www.insectsofalberta.com/policecarmoth.htm

Tomorrow morning, 21 August 2018, my plan is to get up very early so that I can be on my way out of the city. It is a long drive to my destination, which gives me just long enough to click to my heart's content there, before facing the long return journey. It's very rare that this actually happens when I plan on a drive by myself, so we will see if I actually get up in time. The last time I checked the weather forecast, I noticed rain in three days' time, so I need to get out while the sun is shining. There is no telling how bad the smoke will be, blowing into Alberta from the British Columbia wildfires. I won't post any photos before I go tomorrow, but I have just added four photos tonight, taken on 5 August in Brown-Lowery Provincial Park.

After a mishap with my photos three days before, on 3 August 2018, I decided to spend a bit of time at a park SW of the city. Three days earlier, while I was taking photos at Rod Handfield's, I suddenly noticed that the image seen in my FZ200's viewfinder was smaller than it should be and also that I could no longer take 48x zoom, just 24x. I had no idea why this was happening, until I got home and downloaded my photos to my computer. Somehow, no idea how, I must have caught the "burst" button, setting my camera to take multiple shots at a time - and when I say multiple, I mean MULTIPLE! I couldn't tell that the camera was taking more than one shot. I found that the default setting in my camera for burst was 60 images. So, every time I thought I was taking one photo, my camera was taking 60 basically identical shots. Sigh! Normally, I never use burst mode. Worst of all, the resolution of each shot is ridiculously tiny, so they are useless for almost anything other than displaying on a computer screen.

As it was a long weekend here, thanks to a Civic Holiday today (Monday). I was pretty sure that there would be plenty of people at this park, so I felt somewhat more confident about going a bit further into the forest. Also, there was a cycle race (?) going on, along the road that runs alongside the park, and there were a few more people in the area - just in case I came across a bear or a cougar!

On the way home from the park, I stopped to see if any Mountain Bluebirds were still around. This male of one pair looked so dishevelled - I don't remember it being windy. So much work goes into feeding a young family.