Category Archives: Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

Gulf Fritillary On Pickerel Weed (Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge)

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Filed under Flowers Loved by Butterflies, Fritillary, Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly on Pickerelweed blooms photographed by Jeff Zablow at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

We’re in Georgia now, gardening from the first week in February 2019 all the way to the last week in November? Gardening on my Jeffrey’s Birthday, November 28th?? This year, 2019, my Birthday falls on . . . Thanksgiving Day.

The prospect of gardening on Thanksgiving Day boggles my mind. It does. In Brooklyn, Queens, New York (Manhattan), Long Island and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the last week of gardening (I love to garden!) was usually the first week in September. Living in Middle Georgia has added +/- some 5 months of gardening to my life. Five months. That’s 5 months of seeing butterflies. I love that prospect, and Georgia so brings a smile to my face, Virginia, Ellen, Debi, Katy, Laura, Rabbi Aaron, Laura I., Rose, Kelly, Pandra, Sylbie, Brian, Stephen and Barbara Ann.

These memories, as this Gulf Fritillary Butterfly on Pickerelweed in Laura’s Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, do necessitate a modicum of maturity, for once Pickerelweed finishes producing its gorgeous pond-side blooms, we’ve got to wait a full year to again enjoy such eye-soothing sights as this one here. (Yes we were in ankle deep pond, and yes we urged G-d to keep any Gators away from us, while we shot away!).

Jeff

How To Infuse Your Own Excitement Into a Photograph?

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Filed under Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA, Viceroy

Viceroy Butterfly on Sumac (Woody Pond) photographed by Jeff Zablow at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

Here we have a genuine enigma, one that I’ve wondered about for a very long time. We were on the Woody Pond Trail, that skirts the very edge of alligator-rich Woody Pond. We’re on the Georgia coast, at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge. Being there, 5 feet from pond’s edge, so evokes memories of growing up on the streets of my Brooklyn, New York. It’s about spending your lifetime near, very near to high-risk, and almost never being touched by it. Living and being near Them (Be they ‘gators or Connected (Mob)) and forever remaining alive and well.

Suddenly, it flew in! A large, fresh and handsome Viceroy Butterfly. I am on record, as loving Viceroy butterflies. Where did he/she land? On a native Sumac bush.

So a butterfly that is Gorgeous flies to this Sumac, not more than 5 feet from me. Tell me about that serendipity! More than even that, I have spent the great majority of my life seeing Sumacs in Brooklyn, Queens, Nassua County, NY, Manhattan, NY and Pittsburgh, growing wild in empty lots, tiny corners of same, etc., and they have always been unwanted, alien, unattractive and they represent uselessness, for they service no purpose and were not wanted in the first place.

Just the week before that beautiful day, Ellen Honeycutt had posted a really good intro piece on Facebook, about native Sumacs in Georgia. What!! I’d always assumed that all Sumacs were those urban mutts, and now I am discovering that we (We!) have native Sumacs here, that she urges us to add to our natives homes gardens.

Let’s tally up now. I’m along a lovely pond, with 12 foot alligators maybe at my feet, and a prize-winning Viceroy staring me in the face, and that Viceroy is aggressively working the fraction of Sumac flowers that have only opened that morning.

I was so excited, so Screaming Happy!!! Comes my question: How do you/Can you infuse your own excitement into an image that You Really Really Want To Share With You ASAP?

Jeff

Hands, Cellphones & Blues

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Filed under Blues, Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

Ceraunus Blue Butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

Some of you do and others don’t. For those of you that do photograph butterflies often, and share your images, we wonder how you feel about photos of butterflies on your hands, your shoulders, your hat or hair, backpacks and in this instance, this Ceraunus Blue flew to our cellphone, perched and primmed there, and posed sweetly.

We’d been Keystone Copping the blues in that sandy spot at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge in coastal Georgia. We cautiously approach, it flees, we follow, it flees. When this Ceraunus flew up to the cellphone, this sweat covered cell, well, there was our opportunity to cop a good Ceraulnus Blue image. But . . .

Over these more than 2 decades, I’ve made certain decisions, concluded certain strategies and likes and dislikes.

Those include, I dislike images of butterflies on people’s hands, arms, shoulder, legs, head, ears, etc. That’s why I rarely ‘Like’ a FaceBook post of a newly eclosed Admiral on your hand. I just don’t think we should have such contact with wild animals, butterflies especially.

I admit that I didn’t throw this image into the circular file. Twenty five minutes of chasing them in that hot, sandy microhabitat, seemed to merit keeping and yes, publishing this image. I too admit that among my favorites images ever are the Jeff’s Earrings exposures taken by Sylbie at the Butterflies & Blooms Briar Patch Habitat in Eatonton, Georgia.

How do you react to images of butterflies, rare or common, perched on a hand or head? On a cell? Backpack?

Jeff

2019 Memorandum

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Filed under Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

Jeff Zablow at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

I think it’s a fine time to assay where we are now, 1/2 way through 2019, in our maybe 25th year of photographing butterflies:

Motivation: Very strong. I continue to want to locate and photograph rare butterflies and fresh butterflies that well represent species.

Energy Level: High, very. Fed by the great joy and satisfaction that I experience in the field.

Field Mojo: That’s been developed over these decades, and remains strong, assuring good reason to expect to have much success in the field.

Abundance of Destinations: Long been a problem. A dirth of friends/acquaintances who know where to find ’em. Those who know their states and tri-state areas well. remain more than reluctant to share.

Obstacles: The wherewithal to travel ( $’s ) and the aforementioned lack of folks who know butterflies well. The very real refusal of butterfly experts to reach out. That sad reality much limits what we can discuss here on wingedbeauty.com.

Field Partners Whom I’ve Worked With & Admire: Barbara Ann, Phil, Rose & Jerry, Angela, Dave, John & Nancy, Mike, Virginia, Cathy,

Disappointments: Those that continue to elude me: All the Elfins, a fine image of a Goatweed Leafwing, Dianas, Great Purple Hairstreak, and the Butterflies of Maine, the Chirichua mountains of southeastern Arizona, those western Buckwheat blues and a whole lot of western Coppers.

Unrealized Images That Haunt Me: That Mourning Cloak on Nichol Road Trail that morning; The Compton Tortoiseshell that landed in front of me at Raccoon Creek State Park’s Wildflower Reserve; that Common Mestra whose absolute fresh beauty caused me to stare too long at the National Butterfly Center

Hopes and Dreams: That all of the above enable. Enable me to continue doing this that I love, indefinitely. My Dad passed at 100 in the Dublin, Georgia Veterans Administration Hospice. Would that I might . . .

Jeff

A Gulf Fritillary Butterfly in Georgia?

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Filed under Fritillary, Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly on Thistle photographed by Jeff Zablow at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

How many Palamedes Swallowtails did we see those 5 days in Florida’s Big Bend Wildlife Management Area? I’d say 65 to 75 Palamedes. Spicebush Swallowtails? More than 5 Spicebush. Tiger Swallowtails? A good 10 or so. Georgia Satyrs? Some 15 or more. What I think were Zabulon Skippers? Probably 20 Zabulons. Viceroy Butterflies? About 20 Viceroys.

When I saw my first Gulf Fritillary, on our 4th day in the field, I was triggered. April 11, 2019, in the Florida Panhandle, and all we’ve seen was one (!) Gulf. When we climbed back into our truck the next day, April 12th, our Gulf Frit counted stood at that one Gulf Fritillary. Sunny, days, highs by 1:30 PM reaching 81F, and just that one Gulf.

I tossed that around in my head, and I’m still weighing the criteria. Passionflowers, the hostplant for Gulf Fritillaries were not seen anywhere that week, not in any of the diverse habitat that Big Bend boasts. Glassberg in his A Swift Guide to the Butterflies of North America cites them as “most common in late summer/fall.”

The Plan always impresses me. There is complex timing for all you’d see in such a destination as Big Bend WMArea. Regretably, the No-See-Ums (Sandflies ?) seem to resist such restraints.

This sweet Gulf here was seen in 2018 at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge along the Georgia coast in August, where there were then, legions like him, on the wing.

Jeff