Nature's Magic - Luna Moths at Skyway

For the first 17 years of my life, my family and I spent our summers down at the Southern New Jersey shore in a small farming community oddly named Bargaintown, a moniker I've never quite understood. My father, an artist and college professor, had the summers off, so every year, just before school ended, we packed up the car and the family pets and took off for the shore. We lived in what could be described as an old, worn, slightly tattered but charming home my parents purchased a few years before I was born in 1955. The house did not possess the splendor of our Manhattan Brownstone nor many amenities (a fully functional bathroom would be installed when I was 10, so the early years can be best described as seriously "roughing it", "outhouse" style, something that never particularly thrilled me) but it did have its own unique, musky charm. Most importantly, the house, its adjacent garage and 5 acres of land served as my father's creative muse and the gathering place for dad's family, all of whom remained in the area after he and my mother settled in New York City in 1948. It was in this environment where I would come to love nature as much as he did and learn about the magical mystery of Luna Moths, one of nature's wonders.

My father loved nature and honored it in all of its beauty and splendor. He loved sea creatures, animals, insects, birds, plants and reptiles, and delighted in each discovery he made in his life, including the live, newborn baby mice he discovered upon opening one of his art studio drawers or the baby vulture he rescued from the side of the side of the road and tried to save. Dad shared each of these discoveries with my two older siblings and I, but I would become the one most touched by it throughout my life.

As I got older, I learned that butterflies and moths captured dad's attention the most out of everything in nature that he had found, their varied colors and designs artistic creations all their own. To preserve their integrity and use them for some of his drawings, dad became something of a specialist in these lepidopterans. He carefully pinned each butterfly and moth on boards cut to fit the glass cases he built and sealed to prevent deterioration. Among the many species he had collected over his first years at our country house were two glorious luna moths that equally captured the attention of my young eyes. As a child, I stared at their luminous beauty and wondered if I would ever have a chance to see a live one, but I wouldn't, at least not until one recent June night at Skyway some 45 years later.

One night, while Bud and I were sitting by the Tiki bar enjoying our late night coffee and our nightly conversation, we noticed more activity and fluttering around our insect lamp beyond what we normally had come to expect at that hour. We looked over and noticed a large number of large, pale mothlike creatures neither of us had seen before, but we didn't know what they were until the next morning. After we got up the next morning, we found at least 6 of these gorgeous moths on the underside of our Tiki bar umbrella, the insect lamp, and on the rocks in our garden, but we weren't sure if they were alive, though it turns out that they were. (That evening, as the sky grew darker, our new visitors flew off into the woods behind our campsite.) When we discovered them, I wondered if these moths were, indeed, the fabled luna moths of my childhood, but I wasn't sure. Bud was as perplexed as I was, but neither one of us had a chance to investigate them until tonight when Bud stumbled upon a website that identified them. I was thrilled.

Luna moths obviously hold a special significance for me because of my father's love for them, but now, after having gone through my breast cancer surgery and the radiation treatments, their appearance at our campsite is of more significance to me. Perhaps in some way, shape and form that none of us can understand, their appearance is my parents' way, particularly my father's, of showing me that they have been beside me all along. I marvel at the thought and smile in knowing that it was at Skyway that a part of my past had come home to me and that maybe the appearance of these moths was a sign from above.

Here are some photos of our lovely visitors.