For the past few days my husband has been returning home from walks near wooded areas telling me of a small orange butterfly he is seeing often. He had decided it was probably a moth. I have considered sending along my camera with him for he seems to see this small orange flying species often,. This morning while sitting in our truck along some birches along a wooded highway, I saw a small orange butterfly fly by and land in a small sized birch!. I didn't stay in my truck long when I saw it land on a birch tree. Grabbing my camera and changing to a macro setting I searched the birch limbs and finally found a brownish moth there. the moth had white markings on its outer wings. Then I noticed a beautiful orange colouring that seemed to be underneath. I could not get a clear photo showing the orange feature of this moth well. I was so disappointed, but the two photos following do include a bit of orange in each.
Where to start searching for its id?I determined to search through every illustration in my" A Field Guide to Moths of Eastern North America" by Charles V. Covell Jr. but what a difficult chore that would be. I vaguely recalled a posting to a Nb nature, a nature mailing list fairly recently and the mention of a moth called "The Infant" .. so I decided to google "The Infant" (moth). What really stood out for me was mention that this moth often resembled an orange butterfly when flying, and secondly and of importance to me, the fact "Bingo"! that it was found on birch trees. both facts I concluded were very significant factors to me in id'ing this moth. Next I looked at images of The Infant on line and some looked very similar to my first two photos posted here. I would be most happy if anyone could help in verifying this id which I have decided is an Infant moth. What a lovely find! As soon as I post this, my camera and I are going out to hang around some birch trees along an old woods road. Maybe I can find some more.of these beautiful little creatures there.
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