This is a scene that you don't see very often, even though, given the enormous number of Winter Moths currently flitting through the night, it must happen countless times under the cover of darkness. What you're watching, of course, is probably not safe for work, and if your kids haven't discovered the, um, "facts of life," you might want to steer their gaze, to say nothing of their subsequent questions, elsewhere. For the rest of us, retirees and consenting adults among them, here's the scoop: the flightless female of the Operophtera brumata clan has, using her pheromones and general attractiveness, lured a male of the species to her—no easy task; the females are exceedingly hard to find—and, with little ceremony, told him, in the way of moths, that it's OK to mate. They waste no time getting down to business and ensuring, alas, that there'll be plenty of caterpillars, come spring, to engage in their now-yearly defoliation drama.