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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!

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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