Deudorix Livia Seen in Ein Gedi

Posted June 28, 2020

Filed under Ein Gedi, Israel, Hairstreak

Deudorix Livia Butterfly photographed by Jeffrey Zablow in Binyamina, Israel

I’ve only seen Deudorix Livia once, in the Biblical place known as Ein Gedi. the Dead Sea is within sight of Ein Gedi. Meeting D. Livia pleased me. His black spots show well here, as do his set of ‘tails.’ He also reveals a tiny bit of his dorsal (upper surface) burnt orange color, a color I like alot.

A hairstreak butterfly that flies all year in the HolyLand, Israel, yet is never seen in any appreciable numbers. One of those butterflies that can be seen throughout Israel, but is uncommon . . . everywhere.

To see him, I took a train from Binyamina to Ber Sheva University South, then took a bus ride, a long bus ride, through a decidedly hostile region, until finally, finally the Dead Sea came into sight, and my bus descended from the high plateau we’d been driving through, to the very, very, very low land that the Dead Sea rests in.

As before, I am pleased to have found so many Israeli butterflies, just as King David, Jesus and Joshua did, then.

Jeff

Redux: That Female Blue-Spotted Arab

Posted May 29, 2019

Filed under Blue-Spotted Arab, Ein Gedi, Israel

The habitat: Very hot, rocky terrain at Ein Gedi, a short distance (but too hot to walk it) from the Dead Sea. The HolyLand. I went there to find this butterfly, the Blue-Spotted Arab and one or two others.

I made a big mistake, by not renting a car. I walked those mornings from my SPNI Nature field house to the border of that dry creek bed. Male Blue-Spotted Arabs were here and there amongst the rocky terrain. They would not allow any approach closer than 15-feet. I did what I do, and scored some good images. Females? I searched for them, and found perhaps three.

Here’s the most sympathetic of those female butterflies. She appreciated that I was near flush with the sun’s heat, and that I was one of the good guys. Her yellows and stark black plus, were strikingly beautiful.

A female Blue-Spotted Arab butterfly, in one of the most arid destinations in the world, smack dab in the middle of the HolyLand.

Just remembering those days in Ein Gedi . . . sing to me.

Jeff

Biblical Butterflying

Posted December 17, 2018

Filed under Ein Gedi, Israel, Yellows

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

Seen A Blue-Spotted Arab?

Posted July 12, 2018

Filed under Ein Gedi, Israel, Sulphur

Been to the Arava Valley, Dead Sea area? That’s the arid strip that has Israel on its west and Jordan on the east side. That’s where you’d have to go to see this Blue-Spotted Arab Butterfly.

I went there. I took the Israel train to the Beer’sheva University station and caught a bus for a nearly 2 hour drive down a gently descending landscape, to Ein Gedi.

Blue-Spotted Arabs were why I went there. They looked so different, so exotic.

I stayed in the SPNI Ein Gedi guest quarters. Didn’t have a rental car, and glad of that, for the bus ride from the train station passed hundreds of homes whose Bedouin residents probably . . .

Here we go again. Jeff? Why don’t you share images of this butterfly that are more easily seen? Well, Elvira, they prefer rock strewn habitat, and each and every time you attempt to cross over the rock to exercise your Macro- lens, they would 23 skidoo!

They were mostly seen along the ‘walls’ lining Wadis (bone dry riverbeds) and that was a crapshoot, for the wadis sported signs Warning!!! all to not enter the wadi, for should a snap! storm hit, those wadis suffer surges of water of incredible ferocity. I’m here with you, so good, there were no such that day.

Jeff

Azanus Ubaldus Butterfly

Posted April 21, 2013

Filed under Azanus jesous, Ein Gedi, Israel

In the last year I’ve walked down streets in Pittsburgh, PA; Savannah, GA; Irvine, CA; Brooklyn, NY; Jerusalem, Israel and New York, NY. People watching is quite interesting. I always see an infinite number of faces, shapes, dresses, types of walk, etc. You never know who you will see next. Will they exchange glances? Will they greet you with a “Hello!” Will they reciprocate your joy of living, joy of experiencing live in its fullest, and for the near future, joy of your freedom from chaos, mayhem and evil?

So it is when you move through a habitat to find and photograph butterflies. You already know most of them, and they don’t vary much from one to the next, until? Well this female caught my eye while I was photographing the site of an 800 year old, excavated synagogue in Ein Gedi, Israel. It was a tiny butterfly; her proboscis was actively collecting nectar from this bush, and she tolerated my careful approach. Azanus Ubaldus populations are found from the Dead Sea south to the tip of the Sinai Peninsula and then along the western coast of the Sinai (D. Benyamini, A Field Guide to the Butterflies of Israel). Moments later, she is gone!

The feeling of satisfaction that follows an encounter with a butterfly I’ve not ever met before is . . . Well you know the feeling. We all experience it, however it is triggered in each of us.

Jeff