agricultural fields | Winged Beauty Butterflies

Large Salmon Arab Butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow at Binyamina, Israel

I’ve scoured Glassberg’s A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America and I cannot find an North American butterfly that is similar to this Large Salmon Arab Butterfly. Where’d I meet this eye-pleasing yellow butterfly? I was working the dirt roads that cut through agricultural fields in Binyamina in central Israel, not to far from the Mediterranean coast. This wildflower grows along many such roads, and butterflies visit it much.

I love photographing butterflies in the HolyLand. They have walked the same trails, ancient many, as I have, seen the same butterflies as I have. I have little doubt that they stopped and marveled at the same butterflies as I have. That they were pleased as I’ve been at G-d’s beautiful winged beauties.

Jeff

Meliteae Phoebe butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow at Mishmarot, Israel

Fritillary butterflies? They can be visual elixirs, so visually stimulating that they make an entire morning, if you know what I mean. This one, Melitaea phoebe was met in the agricultural fields surrounding Mishmarot, north of Tel Aviv, and close to the Mediterranean Sea.

I’ve been fortunate to have seen so many fritillaries now: Great Spangled, Aphrodite, Meadow, Mexican, Gulf, Variegated and Melitaea Persia montium on the peak of Mt. Hermon (Israel).

2018? July beckons as the month I will find Diana. Where? In the mountains of north Georgia. Exactly where? I don’t know, but I will search and search those north Georgian state parks, especially those in northwestern Georgia. Diana fritillaries, I am told, are huge and spectacular. Alone again, naturally.

Jeff