acidic sphagnum moss | Winged Beauty Butterflies

Open Pond at Allenberg Bog, photographed by Jeff Zablow in New York

We searched for this in 2016 and found it. Allenberg Bog in very western New York State. Found it, as you see here. A genuine sphagnum moss acid bog. Barbara Ann and I visited it 2 mornings in a row.

You stand in the bog, your boots all the time sinking, 2 inches here, 4 inches there. That one time, the first day, I stepped onto a spot where the several feet thick moss hidden mat was not in place, and we both had jolt when I begin to sink nearly 2 feet into the abyss. Bye bye Jeffrey L? Thank G-d no, but I was Very Very careful after that.

In 2017 we tried again, but we could not find Allenberg Bog. It seems that the Buffalo Audubon Society that owns Allenberg Bog may not want us to visit it. We could not find it for the trail to it was allowed to grow wild, and trail markings were absent or hidden.

I wasn’t able to join Angela this year, 2018, at Bruce Peninsula in Ottawa, which I much regret. I so wanted to once again see Bog Copper butterflies and the fritillaries that can be found at acid bogs.

Here in Georgia, I am hoping that someone will do the heroics and lead me to good bog destinations. Now planning for trips in 2019, I am not encouraged that y’all will step forward and drop those bread crumbs ’til I am in such a bog. At Allenberg I stood there, impressed that this unique gem has remained unchanged for what 300 years? 500 years? No, 1,000 years?

This is what, the $64,000 Question?

Jeff

Open Pond at Allenberg Bog, photographed by Jeff Zablow in New York

Bogs? My first visit was to an acid bog near Ligonier, Pennsylvania about 23 years ago. Unforgettable, it was. Pitcher plants, sundew, while all the time enduring that unnerving feeling that you are about to sink down, never to be seen again, and find near eternal rest inches from another body, entombed in acidic sphagnum moss, some 2,000 years long gone. Louise Davies led that Wetland Study Group. A day impressed solidly in my mind.

This was Allenberg Bog in western New York State, 2016. It too is an acid bog, formed of unknown centuries of the deposition of sphagnum moss. So acidy, that species that cannot endure acid pH’s stay away, and the bog goes on, unchanged. This is where I met a flight of Bog Coppers. They were tiny, mostly cooperative, but near the end of their short flight period, and their wings had dulled as the days went on.

Planning now, I am, to visit Allenberg Bog once again, a bit earlier than I did in 2016. I wish to remeet those Bog Coppers, and see them in their full radiance. Rare fritillaries might also be seen, and even rarer bog orchids. Yummy.

Also in the planning is a trip with Angela and friends to Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, to see, among others, northern bog butterflies and botany. Jeffrey Glassberg’s Swift Guide shook out more than 20 butterflies that I might see for the first time on Bruce.

I’ve made new friends, and am again enlisting Dave’s friends to help me locate Atlantic White Cedar bogs. They just might introduce me to Hessel’s Hairstreak, a rare Southern cedar hairstreak, and one of extraordinary beauty.

Acid bogs beckon, and I promise, I will be cautious, even if I locate those Atlantic White Cedar bogs, where for sure I will be alone. Promise.

Jeff