Category Archives: Yellows

992,117.693 Or 4,227,483,097 Phoebis Sennae?

Posted
Filed under Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA, Sulphur, Yellows

Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly on Pickerel Weed, photographed by Jeff Zablow at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

Glassberg’s A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America cites our large, bright yellow Cloudless Sulphur as the “most common Phoebis.” I think that Jeffrey is right. At this moment, September 18th, we have as many as 15 of them flying in our 303 Garden (20 of them?).

They’re a joy to see, flying in shade or 98F sun, moving from our native flowers to our Tithonia (Mexican Sunflower) or Giant Zinnias. They are mostly kind, tolerating the presence of camera lens.

We notice that aren’t much shared here and on Facebook and other sites. That’s not the way it ought to be, for they are numerous, polite and pretty.

This male was seen on Pickerelweed blooms in a pond at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, near the Georgia (USA) coast. Our boots came from there soaked, but no alligators bothered us. Don’t know who the much smaller butterfly was at the bottom left of the pickerelweed flowerstalk?

Jeff

A HolyLand Yellow

Posted
Filed under Binyamina, Israel, Locations for Butterflies, Salmon Arab, Yellows

Large Salmon Arab Butterfly photographed by Jeffrey Zablow in Binyamina, Israel

We here in the USA have a butterfly that we see nearly everywhere, one that is so familiar that we hardly notice it. The Orange Sulphur flies in meadows and gardens. Seeing a fresh one? A real pick me up, no?

In the HolyLand (Israel)  a closely related yellow flies, the Large Salmon Arab butterfly (Madais fausta). It too loves to nectar on wildflowers and on garden blooms.

This male was seen north of Tel Aviv, in the village of Binyamina. I was visiting family there, and took a walk along farming roads, along the edges of orange, tangerine and grapefruit orchards. He was intent upon nectaring, and tolerated my Macro- approach some. Was it hot? Yes, some 91F Middle East hot, but the rewards for me were real and loved.

Jeff

Anthocharis Damone Syra in the Galilee

Posted
Filed under Kadesh Trail, Israel, Yellows

Anthocharis Damones (Protected), photographed by Jeff Zablow on Qedesh trail, Israel

What a coup! A male Anthocharis Damone Syra butterfly, protected because of its scarcity, in the Upper Galilee region of the HolyLand, Israel. I very much wanted to score an image of this richly colored butterfly, and I met them in March 2012 and again in March 2015.

Images shared in field guides often disappoint, for in the printing, color usually loses its real life richness. I’m sitting here with an Israeli field guide for butterflies, and the images of this Anthocharis is not only washed out looking, but it’s an image of a pinned, collected butterfly.

My images are shot with Fuji Velvia slide film, and I do that for, I am told, I’m a purist, and want real-time color. The image here very much approximates the hues of this butterfly that I saw on Kedesh trail, south of Kiryat Shemona, in the uppermost Galilee.

Our next chance to revisit Israel’s Galilee and Golan regions (lush, green and hilly to mountainous = not the arid desert some imagine when they think of Israel) may well be in May or June of 2020.

Hey, did you notice that sharp little purplish bloom in the right of the image?

Jeff

 

Biblical Butterflying

Posted
Filed under Ein Gedi, Israel, Yellows

Blue-Spotted Arab Butterfly photographed by Jeffrey Zablow in Ein Gedi Israel

Blue Arab. I still puzzle over the common name given to this HolyLand butterfly. I was determined to see and shoot them. There was this aura of different, of exotic and almost inaccessible for me. I’m not especially fond of travel, and surely don’t like traveling alone. How’d I get there? Took the train south from Binyamina, past thousands and thousands of acres of lush agriculture, to Beir Sheva University station. Took a bus from the train station, past hundreds and hundreds of Bedouin homes, then along the west coast of the Dead Sea, to my destination, the SPNI field house at Ein Gedi. 93F and bone dry.

This is the same Ein Gedi that features prominently in the history of Christians and Jews. It remains tiny, and undeveloped. It is something to behold, for there is where you get the scale and sense of what it was like, at least some sense of that time.

There was an ancient synagogue there, and it was not much like today’s centrally air conditioned types. I was near constantly tickled with the stark reality of the place. Really, I was. So many walked there, fled to there, studied there, dreamed there. The connection to us is moving, very.

This male Blue Arab butterfly denied my getting too close, though he did allow this camera click, and it nicely reveals much.

Jeff

Barred Yellow Butterfly

Posted
Filed under Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA, Yellows

Barred Yellow butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow at Harris Neck State Park, GA

On day one at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, I parked at the Refuge Office. Oddly the office was closed. August 2018. Their office butterfly garden was a good one, and it was busy with butterflies. Skippers of several species flew, a Pipeline Swallowtail appeared and disappeared.

After some 30 minutes or so, I wandered along the margins of the Park Office road, and I saw it. A tiny yellow butterfly, flying gently from one tiny wildflower to the next. It’s manner of flight was new to me, and that raise the excitement level much!

Many minutes of tracking this slow flying, but acrobatic butterfly explained why I didn’t know it. Barred Yellow butterflies are not found in western Pennsylvania nor are they found in the New York City Area. They are resident from South Carolina to Louisiana and in very southern Texas.

He was one of 3 Barred Yellows seen that morning, all on the cut berm of the Refuge Office road.

Why’d I share this image. Barred Yellows must have attended US Air Force jet fighter pilot training, for they are exceedingly difficult to follow, as they twist, turn and spin in flight. Approach them, and they fly to a new spot 15 feet away. Reapproach and that game begins anew. This image was the closest I could approach, and my Macro- lens (IS) was relieved to get so much as this!

Jeff