Horace’s Duskywing Butterfly (RCSPark)

Posted March 17, 2014

Filed under Duskywing, Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

May 8th and we’re not alone as we travel Nichol Road trail in Raccoon Creek State Park. These pert, excitable little Duskywing butterflies flank me on either side of much of the trail. Some hold their position, others flee, only to set down 15 feet ahead or back. Very territorial, are these butterflies. Female Duskywing butterflies are more brightly decorated, this one here an especially well-adorned miss.

That she’s a Erynnis horatius is fairly certain… but not guaranteed. Juvenal’s, Wild Indigos and possibly other Duskywings are also flying here in May.

Duskywings, when they are as fresh as she is, remind me of certain men’s haberdashery shops that used to line spiffy Madison Avenue in New York, New York in the 1980’s. Enter those hatters and you’d enter a world of the richest chocolate-brown hats that could be imagined. A well dressed, confident man in a rich brown hat…

Good little butterflies, keeping you company, and keeping you sharp and aware, ready for the Leps that your camera lens is aching to capture. Good.

Funny too about Duskywings… I’ll bet that only 1 in 20 who hike these trails, notice our tiny Duskywings. As I meet hikers on these trails, to my question, ‘What butterflies have you seen?” Answer (guaranteed): None. Me, I’m thinking, actually you have probably set your eyes on dozens, though few such nerve impulses have made it all the way to that locus in your brain that….

Jeff

Diversity in Red-Spotted Purple Butteflies

Posted March 15, 2014

Filed under Raccoon Creek State Park, PA, Red Spotted Purple

We encounter many people during the course of a day, usually noting the unique features of each one of them. Some of us are better at that than others. Many of us, as is true of many police officers, are especially skilled at noting specific features of people they interact with.

Do we demonstrate that same skill when we see butterflies? My experience in the field, and when I deliver a Powerpoint presentation, is that few people notice differences among butterflies of the same species. Here we view 2 Red-spotted purple butterflies, both seen at Raccoon Creek State Park in southwestern Pennsylvania. This species is well-known for having much variation from one butterfly to the next.

Which has suffered the greatest loss of wing scales?
Which has a pair of white marks at the very top of the head?
Distinct white marking at the front ends of each forewing?
Wider and more starkly black streaks along the outer margins of the hindwings?
A single red streak near the front-middle edge of each forewing?
White spots on the dorsal surface of its abdomen?
Darker forewings?
More sharply defined blue areas in the hindwings?

Jeff

Tawny Emperor & the Nixon White House Photographers

Posted March 13, 2014

Filed under Raccoon Creek State Park, PA, Tawny Emperor

Hannah and David gave me Dennis Brack’s Presidential Picture Stories – Behind the Cameras at the White House (2013). David Kleber was an NBC White House Photographer, and had alot to do with the book design and production of this fascinating book. One of those hard to put down reads. Inside recollections of their work and terrific anecdotes with so many U.S. Presidents of the 20th century.

So I get to page 98 . . . and there it is. Acknowledgment of a dilemma that I have experienced so many times in the field. The same tense drama that accompanied the taking of this photo of Asterocampa clyton. Sitting there having dinner, page 98 was the first time that I had ever seen anyone else moan about this game changer of a moment.

Brack writes of the day that Richard Nixon relinquished his job as President, his final day in the job.” . . . Nixon walked up the ramp to the helicopter and turned to face the crowd on the lawn. First, there was a wave, almost a salute-better get that, it might be all there is. Then he continued with his right arm, bringing it across his face and holding his hand high above-certainly want that. The photographers’ prayers started: “Lord, please let me be on frame thirty-one and not frame thirty-five.” Finally, the classic Nixon Double Whammy, his arms straight out and both hands making the “V” sign . . . Some photographers got the picture and were happy, some did not and were not so happy.”

Yes, I still shoot film (Fuji slide). I happened upon this Tawny Emperor (its other name) in the most unlikely place, and I had just done a no-no. I had left the roll from the day before, with more than ⅔ of the 36 exposures used, in the camera. This butterfly was spectacular and in a priceless pose, on the horizontal member of a wooden trail sign at the trailhead of the Wetland trail in Raccoon Creek State Park, in southwestern Pennsylvania.

When I am impressed by a butterfly, very impressed, I like to shoot 40 to 50 exposures of it, hoping that 1 or 2 will be winners. The risk? The risk is that after 2 0r 3 camera clicks, the butterfly is goooooone! Now how could I do that with less than 10 unexposed shots in the camera? Like the White House cameramen (all men back then), I asked G-d’s help, shot the roll…held my breath while I removed the roll and reloaded a roll of ASA 100, and … it was still there, still posing. Was it injured, sick? I shot out the entire new roll, and again reloaded. At about the 5th or 6th shot of this 3rd roll, our Tawny Hackberry disappeared like a rocket, straight out of sight.

Here’s the best of those exposures. Thanks to Dennis Brack, David Kleber and Hannah Kleber.

Jeff

Fabriciana Niobe Philistra (Protected) (Mt. Hermon) … 1 in 5,000,000,000,000 ?

Posted March 10, 2014

Filed under Fritillary, Mt. Hermon, Israel

Wonderful! A working image of this rare, protected butterfly on… Mt. Hermon, at Israel’s northernmost border. He was not approachable … until he spotted these groundcover blooms on the mountaintop. So irresistible their aroma must have been, for he sped to these blossoms, and spent precious moments on each, taking in the sugary nectar.

This is another image that I am sharing, taken in June 2008. I had experienced a life-changing personal loss months before, and my daughter had relocated from Washington, D.C. to Tel Aviv. As I planned to visit her, I pushed myself to go for it, do something radical with my camera. Eran Banker was contacted, and off we went from Tel Aviv to … the peak of Mt. Hermon! Quite a few of my photos from Mt. Hermon can be seen here on wingedbeauty. Never, never will I forget that trip. Eagles flying by us as we took the lift to the mountaintop, butterflies like this one, found nowhere else, a landmine (where there were not supposed to be any), OMG! views of Syria and Lebanon, the cattle, grazing 7,000 feet plus on the mountaintop, and the knowledge that we were being watched, surveillance was watching us.

A rare Fritillary this one, flying May through July, on a mountain that you and I cannot visit because of a certain civil WAR, in Syria.

Jeff

Plebejus Pylaon Nichollae (Mt. Hermon)

Posted March 4, 2014

Filed under Blues, Mt. Hermon, Israel

I read yesterday that 150,000 are estimated to have been killed in the carnage that is going on in . . . Syria. That’s 150,000 men, women and children. That’s why the Israeli IDF would not let me near the peak of Mt. Hermon, 8 months ago, in June 2013. Three days ago, 2 rockets landed on the mountain.

That mountain peak, Mt. Hermon, is home to numerous rare and endangered species. At a nexus where 3 continents meet, it is an important wildlife focus, for the tens of millions of migratory birds that fly over it, and for rare, exquisite butterflies, like this one.

One of the species of blue butterflies, tiny, purposeful little jewels that those of us who have read this far love to find and follow, this male has flown for days or weeks, and shows evidence of several interactions with predacious birds, insects and or reptiles and perhaps even mice. But, just look at him! Lost lots of his tiny scales as well as wing edges, yes. Still gorgeous? Absolutely. These blues and purples bedazzle, even then.

Vladimir Nabokov was to his death the world’s expert on blue butterflies. How he would have been fascinated by this one.

Found only on Mt. Hermon, and, as we’ve posted earlier, not to be seen by you and I and them . . . for a very long time ahead. Those lethal weapons on the other side of the mountain, in Syria, will assure that.

Jeff