Monthly Archives: August 2017

Edwards Hairstreak Hello

Posted
Filed under Hairstreak, Lynx Prairie Reserve, Adams County, OH

Edwards Hairstreak Butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow at Lynx Prairie, OH

Angela kept touting the bounty of Adams County, in southern Ohio. Friends of mine were already planning to make that trip, in late June. Nancy and John would be coming from the Georgia coast. Barbara Ann from Frewsburg, New York. How could I resist Angela’s offer of prairies, butterflies, orchids, fens, meadows?

I drove to Dayton, Ohio from Pittsburgh, and  rendezvoused with most of the group. Cedar Bog did not disappoint. Showy Orchids, the first I’d ever seen. Big, big and exquisite they were. Just gorgeous.

We then drove down, Petra too, to Adams County and a cabin at Shawnee State Park. Others, Flower, Joe , Jane and Dave arrived, and we were a group heavy with field experience, especially schooled in butterflies, orchids,  native wildflowers, moths and more.

Lynx Prairie took my breath away. Native prairie, with wildflowers in full regalia,  coneflowers and butterflyweed in abundance. And on those butterflyweed flowerheads, Edwards Hairstreaks! Lots of Edwards. A sizable flight of them. I can’t remember ever having met this hairstreak before.

Look at this sweetie. You like?

Jeff

In Brooklyn, We Boys Called It a ‘Do-Over’

Posted
Filed under Metalmark, Shellman Bluff, GA

Little Metalmark butterfly on bloom, photographed by Jeff Zablow at Shellman Bluff, GA

Like it was yesterday. Playing on East 58th Street, with nary a car going by to bother us, our street had an amazing number of boys. I once  counted those boys on my street, who were in a 3-year age range, including me? . . . 30 boys!

We played all of our sports on that asphalt street, punchball, stickball, football, roller hockey ( never liked that last, as my nutso! friends now had hard sticks in their mits . . . ).

When a kid didn’t like how something went, and felt he had basis, he’d yell . . . “Do-Over.” We were a tough, yet fair bunch of boys, and we honored that when it was fair and square.

This 2016 image of a Little Metalmark, captured in Shellman Bluff, Georgia, ranks for me as a reasonable call for a Do-Over. They are among the tiniest of American butterflies, they nectar on these mini-blooms, themselves inches above the ground. Shooting this look on your belly, risks what happened to me on Jekyll Island, culminating in that tick holding fast to my chest, and a subsequent visit to Urgent Care in Eatonton.

The only way to capture this Sweetheart of an eye-pleaser is to crouch down, all the way down, and talk to my Macro-lens, urging it to do it, do it well, and make Papa happy. Now, know that it was unendingly ultra-humid, and each time I sought to score images, the sweat reached my headband, and soon overran it, salty sweat now pouring into my eyes. Got the picture?

Then I share this, and I share how much I wanted those silvery stripes to sing to you. My new lens ( the last quit on me ) has the built-in Image-$tabilizer feature, so . . . .

Jeff wants . . . a  . . . Do-Over!

Thanks to Nancy and John, sincerely.

Jeff

Setting the Table for the Kids

Posted
Filed under Fort Indiantown Gap, PA, Fritillary

Mating Regal Fritillary Butterflies photographed by Jeff Zablow in Fort Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, PA

Our great grandkids? The awful news that washes over our radios, televisions, iPhones and well, some time ago, our newspapers, does every once in a while trigger thoughts of How’re We Doing? Here in the USA, there in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, that tiny miscreant, North Korea? Some of us bite the bait, so to speak, and get caught up in a media malaise.

Wonderfully, those who come visit here, come to see, are the folks who largely deny that unpleasant ‘blanket’ of melancholy to settle over our heads. We look for beauty, wonder, awe, excitement, the thrill of the discovery, and the bounty of the Cr-ator.

We regrettably do have concerns. One that heads the list for me, and  perhaps for you, is what will we be providing for our grandchildren and great grandchildren? I’m now reading Travels of William Bartram, edited by Mark Van Doren . . . ‘an unabridged edition of this classic with all 13 original illustrations’ (Dover Publications, NY 1955, first published in 1928). It is the full account of British botanist Bartram, as he scoured Florida and Georgia, shortly after America’s Independence, seeking useful botany. It is Amazing! 99.899% of America was undeveloped then, and the natural landscape was Rich in life, all kinds of life.

Now, when I walk through Frick Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and search its 900 +/- acres, I cannot escape the reality, that more than 70% of the botany that I see is . . . alien. And the fauna? Where is that carrier pigeon, the cougar, rattlesnakes, and that brings us here, to this view of a pair of mating Regal Fritillary butterflies. They used to fly in Frick. They used to fly from southern Maine to the Florida Panhandle ( corrections would be more than welcome ). Gone from the states that stack themselves Maine to the north and Florida to the south. Fact is, this huge meadow in central Pennsylvania is the only place that they still can be found. Omg! Only a few hundred Regals, in those what, 15 states?

So, we share this graceful, important image, of sheer fragility. What table are we Americans setting for our grandkids and great grandkids, as we continue the rush to build, develop, and bulldoze?

Jeff

 

 

Stop, Stare & Admire . . . .

Posted
Filed under Raccoon Creek State Park, PA, Wildflowers
Spring Larkspur Wildflower photographed by Jeff Zablow at Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

Spring Larkspur Wildflower photographed by Jeff Zablow at Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

What stops you in your tracks? Increasingly, less and less sets our emergency brakes, in this ever more sophisticated world. That’s unless you are a ‘naturalist.’

A naturalist consciously sets out from home to destinations near and far, for the purpose of  feasting on  natural beauty. Genuine naturalists stop often, to stare, ponder and admire. They refuse the urge to pick, touch, upset, or nudge the botany and animals that good luck sets before their eyes. What do they want to happen? They want to come upon unique ferns, wildflowers,  mushrooms, herbaceous plants, woody plants, carnvirouous plants, wetland plants, plants of fens, bogs and swamps. Plants of arid  habitat, boreal habitat, subtropical habitat, mountainous habitat, and plants of valleys, crevices, and microhabitats.

We’re sharing this wildflower that always stops Jeff in his tracks. Spring larkspur. Uncommon, of fascinating flower form and blessed with color that nears indescribable. Who? How? Where? Why? Jeff stops, stares and admires.

Jeff