Monthly Archives: January 2018

Great Spangled Fritillary on a Bulging Flowerhead

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Filed under Fritillary, Lynx Prairie Reserve, Adams County, OH

Great Spangled Fritillary Butterfly on Common Milkweed II photographed by Jeff Zablow at Lynx Prairie Reserve, Ohio

For many, this pleasing view will bring memories of meadows, roadsides, home gardens, Botanical gardens and bucolic small USA farms, with Asclepias syriaca plentiful amongst and about rows of healthy corn.

We are ripping to hike those late June, July trails, headed to stands of Common milkweed, Teasel, Butterflyweed and Dogbane. When will we reach those bulging flowerheads, with a fresh Great Spangled Fritillary butterfly, like this one, methodically working the dozens of individual flowers, for sugary nectar, mixed with a cocktail of proteins, dissolved pollen, and numerous other nutrients?

Where was Jeff when he set his eyes on this truly American fritillary. Kamamama Prairie Reserve in Adams County, Ohio. Same old story here. Jeff already has good images of Great Spangleds, but this photograph was so necessary to take!

Necessary? It was Late June, 2017. For all the yelling, screaming, marching, whining– here we were in Real Time. Real Time? Yep. For all the background media noise, here it is, proof positive. Halt the ‘dozers.’ Conserve the Land. Then, those wise enough to make the trip, will be treated to joy, peace, tranquility, connection to H-s beauty.

There was a time in my life when I managed apartment buildings in NYNY. I had hundreds of tenants who desperately needed to spend time such amidst the Great Spangleds and Milkweed. Sadder than dirt, for most of those hundreds of people had no idea that the remedy for their isolation, fear, depression, neurosis was not too very far away. Most of them suffered one depravation or another. Butterflies and Blooms is the best, nearly reachable medicine, in Eatonton Georgia.

Jeff, no need of a License to dispense here.

Jeff

WingedBeauty Marks Three of Twenty-five Species of Metalmarks!

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Filed under Metalmark, Shellman Bluff, GA

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

New Year’s Eve, December 31st, 2015 came and went, and I still hadn’t seen a Metalmark. Come 2016, and see here; I fixed that. Here we are with a rather fine looking right forewing and hindwing, of a Little Metalmark, in Shellman Bluff, Georgia. Meeting up with this Oh So Tiny flying winged beauty? Good, very good.

Angela and Barbara Ann invited me to join them in very south-central Ohio, and there I found as many as 50 Northern Metalmarks. How Happy I was that morning! Seems that I just love Metalmarks. I strive to capture the reflection of sunlight off of those scintillating ribbons of silvery strips. Here, I just about did, sort of almost.

Just weeks ago, I was in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, and at the National Butterfly Center, I saw Fatal Metalmarks. I will soon share these images.

Now I’m an owner of A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America (Glassberg, 2017), and my education continues. There are 25 species of Metalmarks that fly in the United States. Some are residents here, others are uncommon migrants.

25 Species! What does one do, when one has seen 3 of 25, and just loves meeting new Metalmarks? What?

Jeff

Are You Amongst the 1.4% ?

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Filed under Lynx Prairie Reserve, Adams County, OH, Native Plants and Flowers, Wildflowers

Rare Asclepias photographed by Jeff Zablow at Lynx Prairie Reserve, Ohio

Angela, Barbara Ann, Joe, David and Janet kept spotting a new one, in Adams County, Ohio, just miles from the Kentucky Border. That June 2017 trip, about 6 days long, delivered, as we used to say, ‘Big time.’

Never a drinker, or a smoker, and despite the skepticism of some, there were zero (no, nada, zilch!) drugs or Mary Jane in Samuel J. Tilden High School back then. That’s 5,200 students. Me? I have always gotten my ‘rush’ from unscheduled sightings of never before seen butterflies, wildlife and botany. Lately it’s been orchids.

I remember Angela spotting this rare flower on a trail in Lynx Prairie Preserve, also in the Adams County. If memory serves, she and others had seen this Ascelpias (milkweed) before, but for sure they said it is difficult to find, and is never found in any numbers.

I stared at it as if it was one you’d expect to see, maybe on Mars? My field guides are still in boxes, so the name eludes me. The name, no? Recollecting when we met it? Yes, for sure. Angela? Barbara Ann? David? Phil? Whatdoyouthink?

I really, really enjoy such wildly fascinating plants, and count myself, happily, amongst the 1.4% or make that the 0.026% of Americans who have seen such starkly beautiful living things that I have been so fortunate to see.

I wonder if that 0.026% figure is appropriate too for Vancouver Island, Frewsburg, New York, Sri Lanka,  Whidbey Island, Washington, Poland, Hamilton, Canada and Latvia?

Jeff

A Dainty Israeli Blue Butterfly: Lampides Boeticus

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Filed under Blues, Mishmarot, Israel

Lampides boeticus Butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow at Mishmarot, Israel

We met along those rough agricultural roads in Mishmarot, Israel. Amidst agricultural orchards planted with orange, grapefruit and tangerine trees, lined up as far as your eye can see.

A dainty Israeli blue butterfly is common enough in the HolyLand. The seeker of butterflies toiled in his brain, Don’t I already have good images of this Lampides?

Blush, for even though that is true, this sweetie sipped nectar so slowly, so regally, that up came the 100mm/2.8 Macro- lens, and I shot away. When an eye pleaser like this one, a fine example of its species, and fresh out of  its ‘make-up’ before camera shoot session presents itself, there remains no other choice than to Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!

A pookie!

Jeff

The Envelope Please! Start with the Monarchs

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Filed under Monarch, Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

Monarch Butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow at Raccoon Creek State Park. Jeff blogs about the art and science of butterflies at http://www.wingedbeauty.com

I took a stroll . . .   Oops! a scroll down through our more than 800 images. The thought came to my mind, “Which of the butterflies that I have photographed, are the most compliant, which hold their pose, allow me to shoot them? Which produce the most consistently pleasing images?”

Let’s start with which have been the most difficult, most elusive and most frustrating? My personal list begins with Mourning cloak, Georgia satyr, Gemmed satyr, Red-banded hairstreak, Goatweed leafwing and Compton tortoiseshell. In the Lower Rio Grande Valley two weeks ago, I surely add the usual suspects, the Yellows, large and small, and Metalmarks as well as those butterflies that I saw, shot and winced when I realized how beaten-up they were (Hairstreaks, that Mexican Bluewing).

I used to watch the annual Oscars award show on TV, and that interesting moment, when the movie star asked for, “The envelope please,” fits here, so nicely. The butterflies that I have most enjoyed shooting, affording the most enjoyed images? Start with the Monarchs. This one here, on Joe Pye Weed, at Raccoon Creek State Park in Hookstown, southwestern Pennsylvania is one of many Monarch images I am glad to say are mine. Monarchs get the ‘Oscar.’

Easy runner-ups are the Gray hairstreak, Northern metalmark, Red-spotted purple, Tiger swallowtails at sunrise, Red Admiral, Baltimore checkerspot, Great spangled fritillary and the Regal fritillary.

Funny that, how so many people don’t understand why we love and seek out butterflies. You will spend half a lifetime seeking that 12-point buck, or one image, any image of a northeastern cougar or a brief glimpse of a bird not seen in 30 years. OK, those? But really, really want to finally seek and capture an image of a Creole pearly-eye or a Dingy purplewing  or a Milbert’s? 98% of folks I’ve ever met don’t see the sense of that.

And what’s in your Envelope Please!

Jeff