Luna Moth

True story: I was working one night at a remote cell phone tower, carrying my equipment into the shelter from my truck. A motion caught my eye under the arc and electric hum of a security light above the shelter. I watched for a few moments as a big something–at first I thought it was a bat–kept flying up in a circle and then would smash back into the ground. I walked over, head cocked to the side, trying to figure out what it was and why it kept bashing its head into the ground over and over with big meaty-sounding thumps. I finally saw that it was a big luna moth, as big as my hand, and in the next few minutes as I watched and it continued its cycle of circle, whomp, circle, whomp, I felt a stirring of something like pity in my gut. I felt like this moth was fresh from its cocoon and learning to fly and just wasn’t getting the hang of it. I watched and waited, silently cheering the little fella along, but although it would stop and sit on the ground for a minute or two it eventually would hop into the air again. It was really disheartening.

I know a lot of people would tell me to keep out of nature’s affairs, to let the little moth learn on its own merit, but it was damn hard for me, a bona fide softy at heart, to keep watching it smack into the ground again and again. So I tried to do something about it. I wanted to help. Besides, I wasn’t going to get any work done that night so long as I knew that helpless little moth was out there banging away at the gravel.

When it took a break I reached down and picked it up as gently as I could. It didn’t make any fuss, which made me think it must be utterly exhausted. I remember it felt like I’d picked up a silk feather. It tickled a little, but it was as gentle and weightless as air in my hand. My plan was to simply hold it up as high as I could, so when he decided he could just take off from there (I’m 6′3″, so I gave him a pretty good launching pad). Soon enough, he took off, and went up about three feet with me cheering and hooting below him, and then he dove straight back to the ground. He just sat there and I thought, “Oh my God I’ve killed it.” I picked it up again and it fluttered a touch, just a touch, and so I held him up once again, praying–praying–that he would find the skill he needed to fly, to live.

That last time was magical. I was cheering for him as he launched off my hand. He flew up into the glow of the security light, up and up so high I could barely see him, just a faint little will-o-the-wisp against the night sky, floating back and forth, back and forth. And then he came back down like a flash, so that I thought he was going to hit the ground again, but just as he reached head height to me, he looped back up and at that moment I knew, I just knew, he would be gone in a flash, never to be seen by human eyes again, and I smiled. For just a moment, the thought popped into my head that this little moth was thankful for my help, and that he was flying down to let me know he appreciated it, that he couldn’t have done it without me, and that he was going to be all right now.

And then a bat ate him. Right out of the air. Swooped in like a black bullet and gulped him down like a little green burrito. I stood there for a few minutes, staring up at the spot where I’d last seen him, and I could see the bats now, flying around the light, just outside of its limits, swimming through the night like sharks waiting for a newborn to drop into the inky blackness of their ocean.

If you’d like to know who took this amazingly beautiful picture…visit S J Carter’s website.