Taken in Virginia’s Butterflies & Blooms Briar Patch Habitat, we want to know what you think when you view it? Shot with Fuji Velvia ASA 50 film. Not PhotoShopped. A Fine Georgia day in the Piedmont.
Please do share what you think when you view this in mid-February?
What’s your thinking upon seeing this?
Do let all of us know, by completing a ‘Comment.’
Jeff . . . Who very much hopes to enjoy a Minimum of 20 ‘Comments.’
I imagine that you have yours, for I know that I have some myself. These decades of searching for butterflies in North America and the Middle East (Israel) have produced a very short list of butterflies that I especially love.
Here at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, along the Georgia coast, my imagination was caught by this native Sumac bush. It grew within. a foot or two of Woody Pond. That pond is the home of herons, storks, ibises, rails, egrets and alligators. Ellen Honeycutt has written of the Sumacs native to Georgia, and this Brooklyn boy was fascinated, Fascinated because 1/2 of my adult life, spent in and around New York City, I’d always heard that Sumacs (alien) didn’t belong, despite that there were 10’s of millions of alien Sumacs thriving thereabouts.
As I was examining this Woody Pond Sumac, it just beginning to bloom, who flies in? One of my butterfly favs, this Viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus). The Sumac kept it in partial shade, but the deep, rich color of this Viceroy was compelling, and there I was admiring a handsome specimen of one of my favorites, most beloved butterflies.
Decades of Love triggered, at Laura’s Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge.
Jeff
No, they aren’t approachable in The HolyLand, Israel. Don’t imagine that you can carefully approach a Swallowtail butterfly there, and capture its image. Oh, No.
This is a prized picture for me, of a male (?) Papilio Machaon Syriacus buiterfly. He flew into this bloom at Ramat Hanadiv preserve, closed to the Mediterranean Ocean. Me? I was standing just about there, and I knew, knew that this was a special opportunity for me, on my what, 8th or 9th trip to Israel.
Pleased I am, with a good image of a speedster butterfly.
Jeff
Had to be more than a decade, me working that productive Nichol Road trail at Raccoon Creek State Park. That southwestern Pennsylvania trail partly skirted a tiny, always moving creeklet. That’s where I ocassinaly saw Northern Pearly-eye Butterflies.
The trouble was, they almost never allowed me and my trusty Macro- lens to get close enough . . . We who do this have wishes, wishes of butterflies we’d like to photograph, REALLY want to photograph in all their, fresh, healthy glory.
My wish list? Northern Pearly-Eye used to be way at the top of my List. Others? Satyrs, Goatweed Leafwing, Metalmarks, King’s Hairstreaks and Giant Skippers. Oh, and Elfins, lots of Elfins?
When I was working Nichol Road trail, I spotted this spectacular Northern. My approach was especially cautious. I went down in my patented way, down to rest on my left knee pad. Good. I could have begun to serenade, with “When you wish upon a star, Makes no difference who you are, When you wish upon a star, Your dreams come true.”
Our star Northern stay in place, as if posing for me. Magnificent. Beautiful. Incredibly elegant, all these applied. The images? I prize 3 of them, they among my most beloved.
Happy Jeff.
Jeff
Saw a Coneflower growing just inside the entrance to Lynx Prairie. Angela had promised that Lynx Prairie preserve, Adams County, Ohio would be a June bonanza, and those Coneflowers were among the first Wowsas! I’d met that week. I grown Coneflower in my gardens in my houses going back to what, 1980? I never, never knew that Coneflower, purple Coneflower is a native. A Native American perennial!
Some minutes later, when I got separated from the 5 others, I too quickly thought that Brooklyn boy had been . . . ditched. Used to working alone (naturally), I headed out on my lonesome, and shortly, still alone, entered a large meadow. That’s where I smiled from ear to ear, for that’s where I met dozens of very fresh Northern Metalmarks, our first meeting ever. That’s where I met lots of also very fresh Edwards Hairstreak butterflies, they were so colorful that they surely must have eclosed the day. before, or that morning.
My mouth must have been gawking (kind of open and part of a silly grin) at those Edwards Hairstreaks, Northern Metalmarks, Coral Hairstreaks, Monarchs, Great Spangled Fritillaries & Mystery Fritillary (no pics) that I saw that morning.
OMG! times, just a handful of miles from the Kentucky border with Ohio.
Jeff
Winged Beauty Butterflies 