Category Archives: Blues

Tiny Pseudophilotes Vicrama Butterfly

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Filed under Blues, Ramat Hanadiv, Israel

Pseudophilotes Vicrama butterfly, photographed by Jeff Zablow at Ramat Hanadiv, Israel

Less than 2 miles from the shore of the Mediterranean Ocean, in the HolyLand, I scoured the hills of Ramat Hanadiv Refuge for butterflies. This north of Tel Aviv expansive reserve is an excellent destination to find butterflies and rare botany. On site they have an excellent restaurant for lunch, and at the end of each morning, I would make sure to enjoy an excellent meal, in their windowed dining room, with good view of the planted gardens.

That day I found this Pseudophilotes Vicrama butterfly, with its pleasant dotted ventral surface, flash of iridescent purplish dorsal wing surface and as you look closer, that sweet red dot. Angling to include the cute purple bloom seen to the right, the whole of the image pleases me, it does.

Butterflies, rare plants, wildlife and ruins, with a large parking lot, view of the Mediterranean Sea and excellent restaurant on site, more than enough, no?

Jeff

A Stand-Out Eastern Tailed Blue Butterfly

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Filed under Blues, Pigeon Mountain, GA

Eastern Tailed Blue Pigeon photographed by Jeff Zablow at Mountain, GA

We found him in a meadow on Pigeon Mountain. We were in the northwestern corner or Georgia, the Georgia mountains, close to Cloudland Canyon State Park. He was basking in the warming early morning sun. Butterflies, especially male butterflies benefit from the morning sun’s comforting warmth, enabling them to begin flying at top speeds, rather than seeing them up to risk reduced speed, and probable predators.

This male Eastern Tailed-Blue butterfly is a handsome Lep, and one that stands out from those I’ve known these last decades. Those I’ve seen in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio. Toronto, New Hampshire, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and Delaware had orange Spots on the trailing edges of their dorsal (upper) hindwings. He lacks those orange spots.

Is he alone is not having dorsal hindwing orange spots? Do all of the Eastern Tailed-Blues of the Georgia Mountains and nearby Tennessee lack them? The Western Tailed-Blues have them, but they now are found some 1,700 miles west of Pigeon Mountain.

Hmmmm.

Jeff

Tinier Than A Two-Year-Old’s Fingernail

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Filed under Blues, Shellman Bluff, GA

Eastern Pygmy Blue butterfly sipping nectar, photographed by Jeff Zablow at Shellman Bluff, GA

Imagine a butterfly that is tinier than a 2-year old child’s fingernail! Add to that it flits from tiny flower to tiny flower, frustrating the gentleman trying to capture a Macro- image of it. Where does it fly? Just a handful of inches (5″) from the ground.

I was determined to capture some OK images of such an Eastern Pygmy Blue Butterfly. We found them in 2 locations along the Georgia coast, Shellman Bluff and Jekyll Island.

Here then is an image of one of North Americas’s littlest butterflies, the Eastern Pygmy Blue Butterfly, seen in Shellman Bluff, along Georgia’s Atlantic coastline.

Tinier than a baby’s fingernail, it is.

Jeff

Rare Pygmy Blue View

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Filed under Blues, Locations for Butterflies, Shellman Bluff, GA

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

Glassberg’s wonderful A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America notes that “Eastern Pygmy-Blues rarely open their wings when landed.”

I’d remembered that. After quite a long time spent shooting them in Shellman Bluff, Georgia, this small miracle happened. I came upon a fresh Eastern Pygmy Blue butterfly that landed, for a brief moment. Then . . . it opened its wings and kept them open for moments!

I must have smiled from ear to ear, for this “rarely” is seen.

Here is a rare view of butterfly beauty. I took it. I much appreciated this opportunity, this day in Shellman Bluff.

Jeff

Why Did Mr. Guerin Choose So Holy A Name?

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Filed under Blues, Butterfly Types, Mt. Meron, Israel

Azanous Jesous butterfly photographed by Jeffrey Zablow at Mt. Meron, Israel

This one of the Blue butterflies flies in the HolyLand. This one appeared on my Mt. Meron trail, in the very Upper Galilee. With so reverent a name as Azanus Jesous, I much wanted to score a good image of these tiny blues. Wingedbeauty’s visitors include many Christians, and I guessed that this butterfly, floating from blossom to HolyLand blossom, would mean alot to you.

Here is this mini-gem of a butterfly, resplendent with its numerous black hindwing dots and sweet reddish browns.

I wonder why Mr., Guerin named it so? Suggestions?

Jeff