Monthly Archives: October 2020

“I love to go a-wandering, Along the mountain track, And as I go, I love to sing, My Knapsack On My Back.”

Posted
Filed under Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

I think that we learned that song in 2nd or 3rd grade, singing it often, in Public School 244 in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York. It intrigues me, that I remember so many of those grade school songs. It may be because they offered release from the usual, from the nearly every day routine, wake, breakfast, walk to school, lunch, walk home, play ball/games with the many, many children on that E. 58th Street, await my Mother’s called for “Dinner,” followed by homework and bed. Nearly everyday the same. Travel back then was unknown, no one claimed to have gone much beyond that East 58th Street.

This image you see here? Total release from the monotony of my earlier life. No more go to work everyday, no more interaction with those only 15% interested in me and mine. No more emotionless conversations and necessary politenesses.

I am Blessed to be where I am, able to bust-out (my lingo) and visit human-less trails, in the homes of beasts, birds and butterflies, snakes, turtles and a world I am only now learning, the world of botany, it so diverse it astounds me.

“I love to go a-wandering, Along the . . .” Raccoon Creek State Park, Hookstown, Pennsylvania, 7,256 miles from Jerusalem, 9,078 miles from Sri Lanka

Jeff, from Urban Boy to Rural/Wilderness Man (Thank Y-u G-d) and here’s the full Scout Song lyrics:

The Happy Wanderer
I love to go a-wandering, 
Along the mountain track, 
And as I go, I love to sing, 
My knapsack on my back. 
Chorus:
Val-deri,Val-dera,
Val-deri,
Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha 
Val-deri,Val-dera. 
My knapsack on my back.

I love to wander by the stream 
That dances in the sun, 
So joyously it calls to me, 
"Come! Join my happy song!"

I wave my hat to all I meet, 
And they wave back to me, 
And blackbirds call so loud and sweet 
From ev'ry green wood tree.

High overhead, the skylarks wing, 
They never rest at home 
But just like me, they love to sing, 
As o'er the world we roam.

Oh, may I go a-wandering 
Until the day I die! 
Oh, may I always laugh and sing, 
Beneath God's clear blue sky!

Evokes, ‘Oh Beautiful, For Spacious Skies. For Amber Waves of Grain, For Purple Mountains . . . . ‘

Posted
Filed under Eatonton, GA, Swallowtail

Earring Series - Blackswallowtail butterflies coupled, photographed by Jeff Zablow at "Butterflies and Blooms in the Briar Patch," Eatonton, GA

This is why I photograph butterflies, alot. There are moments that thrill, as when I find a rare butterfly, resplendent in extraordinary color, and itself fresh, just days out of its chrysalis. Unexpected moments when I come upon a butterfly that I’ve shot before, but those earlier exposures just did not satisfy my quest for ever finer images.

Then there are times like this, at the Butterflies & Blooms Briar Patch Habitat, in Eatonton, Georgia. There I am witnessing, witnessing beauty that just about takes my breathe away! A fresh pair of Eastern Black Swallowtail butterflies, both just hours out of chrysalis, coupled together, motionless. The thoughts that run through my head? Many. Splendor in the Grass. ‘Under the Boardwalk.’ Inexplicably, ‘Oh Beautiful, For Spacious Skies, For Amber Waves Of Grain, For Purple Mountains Majesty Above The Fruited Plain, America, America, G-d Shade H-s Grace On Thee . . . . ‘

We have a Presidential Election here in the U.S.A in a few days, and its been unpleasant and full of vitriolic activity. This Swallowtail look? It relaxes me, and reminds that their job is to nurture, conserve and foster the expansion of our American G-d given riches. That’s the job of the President. So many before have neglected that responsibility. Teddy Roosevelt. Didn’t he model such thinking?

Jeff

The Bronze Copper Club

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Filed under Copper, Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

Bronze Copper Butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow at Raccoon Creek State Park, Pennsylvania

Few of us have even seen a Bronze Copper (Lycaena hyllus) butterfly. Me? Here’s the only one I’ve been able to photograph. I was working the edge of the Wetland Trail pond in Raccoon Creek State Park (Hookstowns Town, Pennsylvania (45 minutes west of Pittsburgh) and examining the Alder bushes that lined the pond.

Whoa! What’s that? I saw it, knew it was a Copper butterfly, but, it was larger than a tiny American Copper. That wide orange border on the underside of its hindwing is what made my ‘Battlestations’ internal alarm go off. I’d never (Yes, never) seen one before, but I was nurturing years of anticipation of seeing one. I made my Patent Pending Robotic approach, began to shoot away, and away it went. Here is my satisfying image.

Glassberg’s A Swift Guide to the Butterflies of North America notes that Bronze Coppers are LR-LU (Locally Rare-Locally Uncommon). I can verify the validity of that, for in the ensuing years, I’ve only seen 2 of them, and scored zero images to share.

Those of you who have enjoyed meeting a Bronze Copper, meeting this solitary loner of a butterfly, are verifiably Charter Members of the Bronze Copper Club. You’ve worked wetlands much, and seeing a Bronze, the payoff! Upsetting is the real possibility that this pretty butterfly may be steadily decreasing in numbers and in range.

Which of you are Club members?

Jeff

What Makes This Hombre Happy?

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Filed under Flowers Loved by Butterflies, Native Plants and Flowers, Pittsburgh, PA, Wildflowers

Pittsburgh South Vo-Tech public school field trip participants - May 2004, photographed by Jeff Zablow in Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

Every time I scroll down, through our Media Library, all of maybe 900 images, saved to one day share with you, I pause for 2.2 seconds at this one. I don’t believe you know how happy this one makes me.

I was a Biology teacher at South-Vocational Technical High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For those of you from Sri Lanka, Kansas, Georgia, PRChina, Estonia, Britain, Israel, Slovenia and Peru, our school was an 8-hour drive west of New York City. It was once the world’s steel capital. When steel mills shuttered closed in 1980-1981, many left town, those that stayed endured decades of struggle and reduced situations.

The kids in my Biology classes? Most were from income-challenged homes, almost none had ever left the city, and almost none had ever been in a place like this one, Raccoon Creek State Park in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. The Park’s 7,000 +/- acres were wild, undeveloped and rich in wildlife.

I had 5 classes then, with some 130 students. We went on 2-3 Wetland Study field trips, and from that first day in September, I told my students that only those who 1) Cooperated 2) Did Their Work and 3) Tried Their Best, would be selected to go with us. The ‘List’ of who was selected to go usually was announced in February of each year, and additions and subtractions were made as time went by.

There were times when tough (Very!) kids (Gang members and such) approached me, when the bell rang ending class, and once they made sure that no one saw, begged me to go, to have their name put on the ‘List.’ In this photo you see here, one of those more than tough kids in shown. I am amazed still, that that student turned around their performance those 4 months before the field trip, and cooperated 100% on those wilderness trails and on the bus going and coming! Amazed!!

One of those shown was a teacher who came along to insure that all went well. TBTold, that the first and only time that an adult, parent or student, ever accompanied us.

This memory, and those of our other field trips make me proud, very proud of myself. Make me Happy, very. Why?

Most of these kids had it rough, endured lives that were extremely tough, with near full absence of happy life experiences. They loved those hours, as well as the pizza parlor lunch that we enjoyed when we returned to the South Side of Pittsburgh. They loved the outdoors. They loved finally visiting wetlands, forest, meadow, fen and loved those trails, those mysterious trails.

These 16-year olds and 17-year olds were pleased, very pleased that they had pushed their boundaries, extended their personal space placing them, most for the first time, out of Allegheny County and here in Beaver County.  It was a learning experience, that a ‘County Line’ was not a hard boundary, but an imaginary line, that was imminently crossable.

More pleased than that, throughout those hours on the Wetland Trail and on other park trails, they savored the beauty of wild habitat, unfettered habitat, and we discussed why we needed to nurture it, ’til the time when they could return, with their own children, and again take in the sights, smells, sensations. They’d teach their children of the Park, and the need to keep it just as they found it that day.,

I remember, smile, for I was instrumental in launching new, responsible nature lovers, who to this day, will not abuse the Land, but will love it, and will search it for its wonders and such.

Back to Me and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Success.

Jeff

Posts May Trigger Memories

Posted
Filed under Clay Pond Preserve, Frewsburg, NY, Wood Nymph

Common Wood Nymph butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow in Clay Pond,  NY

Hal today posted a photo of a successful field experience. The 9 folks pictured at that pick-up truck, 5 years or so ago all looked pleased, whether they were beaming their smiles at the camera, or ‘posing’ for that same camera. Hal wrote that several had moved out of the area, and one had passed away since. That triggered a not so happy memory for me.

There just aren’t enough folks interested in ‘Nature.’ Me? It seems that as folks leave us, always  too soon, the numbers of people interested in butterflies, orchids, grasses, bees, birds, snakes, turtles trees . . . never seems to increase. Fortunate we are if there are as many knowledgeable as there was 5 years before.

This Wood Nymph butterfly fascinated me, for that single not-so large ‘eye on its right forewing and those 3 tiny ‘eyes’ differ alot from the Wood Nymph butterflies I’ve seen these decades. Why was I at Clay Pond Refuge in Frewsburg, New York? Barbara Ann Case A”H ( or OBM) took me there, and I found butterflies alot, nearly all fresh, active and representative of northeastern USA wetland butterflies.

As Hal noted that his friend is no longer alive, Barbara Ann passed away just months ago, and her expert knowledge and love of field experience now registers as a great loss, with it seems, risk that no one will present themselves to fill the magical void that she has left. Her husband Sig passed just months after Barbara did, and their home will be sold, and the native, ancient orchids on their acreage, what will become of it?

Jeff