My Heart Beat Jumps when I see a Milbert’s Tortoiseshell Butterfly

Posted February 22, 2021

Filed under Flowers Loved by Butterflies, Milbert's Tortoiseshell, Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

Ventral View of a Milbert's Tortoiseshell Butterfly on a Teasel Flowerhead photographed by Jeff Zablow at Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

Your heart beat jumps when a Milbert’s Tortoiseshell Butterfly flies in! Mine does. You just never see them in pairs or threes, and do you expect to see one? No. East of the Mississippi River, they are a northern butterfly.

When this one flew in, and set on this Teasel flowerhead, I was so Thankful for being there, being there then. Add to that the Milbert’s slowly worked the Teasel flowers, one by one, methodically. Better yet, it did not flee when I made my long, protected Macro- lens approach. Icing on the tiramisu cake was that the one was . . . gorgeous. Just look at that flash of nourishing orange on the dorsal surface of that right forewing.

I’m humbled by such limited experiences. I expect that few of you have been so fortunate as I’ve been, to have met and spent many minutes with Milbert’s (this one went to several Teasel flowerheads before it flew).

Raccoon Creek State Park, Nichol Road trail, southwestern Pennsylvania, about an 8-hour drive from the Statue of Liberty boat landing.

(Teasel is an alien plant, FYI, although truth be told, many, many butterflies adore its nectar (as do bees, such as the one shown on the far side of the Teasel)).

Jeff

Talkers & Doers

Posted July 4, 2019

Filed under Eatonton, GA

Searching for Caterpillars/Eggs James Murdock and Virginia Linch photographed by Jeff Zablow at Butterflies and Blooms in the Briar Patch Habitat, GA

There are talkers and there are doers. A couple of years ago, I met James Murdock, shown here at the Butterflies & Blooms Briar Patch Habitat I, with the Habitat founder and angel, Virginia C Linch. I followed them around the OMG! Habitat I, as Virginia introduced James to the hundreds of native Georgian hostplants and nectar-pumping plants she and the volunteers set in to make the Habitat I the success it was. James shared that he worked for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and would soon be a middle school science teacher at nearby Putnam County Middle School (PCMS).

It was one of those Georgia 93F mornings, and I took note of how these two, shown there that day, were totally unconcerned by that.

We in Eatonton have a real, excellent local newspaper, The Eatonton Messenger, and this week’s edition, out on July 4, 2019, today, features a very rewarding story on page one of its Community section B. Titled ‘Inspiration Camps – Growing Knowledge and subtitled ‘Putnam’s newest gardeners gain experience through summer,’ reporter Katie O’Neal shares pics of Murdock and his middle school kids at the Habitat II (the Habitat moved from its original site to this new, larger acreage, still in town) and Katie captures the excitement and enthusiasm that these middle school kids daily enjoy, as they work and improve their gardens at Habitat II and in the PCMS gardens.

James has a full beard now, but he is clearly the same in-the-bushes and doer that he was back when I captured them in this photo. His work with these youngsters is important and they’ll be still gardening in the year, what? 2069! Some of them may well be the next stewards of this Briar Patch Habitat, way down the road. Eatonton, Georgia has a real gem here, and they do not yet realize how it will impact on this city in the future (think Butterfly Festival!).

Virginia? Now that she has retired, the Habitat II is just alive with butterflies, botany, bees, dragonflies and visitors.

These here are doers. Brings a smile, no?

I hope that this news story, in the Eatonton Messenger, is available online.

Jeff

The Grand Central Station Butterflyweed Wildflower

Posted April 4, 2019

Filed under Flowers Loved by Butterflies, Native Plants and Flowers, Raccoon Creek State Park, PA, Wildflowers

Large Clump of Butterflyweed photographed by Jeff Zablow at Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

Official? Not yet, but Butterflyweed certainly ought to be the official Grand Central Station wildflower. For those 37 or so years that I lived in my native New York City, Grand Central Station, in the heart of New York, New York (Manhattan) was a building, whose cavernous main hall was, well, breathtaking! Huge beyond the meaning of the term, you knew it was heavily ornate, but by the time I moved from Long Island, much of its beauty was either covered over, or covered with decades of grime. People by the thousands hustled and bustled and ran to catch trains. It’s been rejuvenated since I left, cleaned and restored.

Butterflyweed is the wildflower parallel. Gorgeous when it’s in bloom, as it is here in Doak field last year, late June, at Raccoon Creek State Park in southwestern Pennsylvania. It’s the kind of plant that flourishes one year, and is nearly absent the next.

In western Pennsylvania, or in Angela’s Adams County, Ohio, or in Barbara Ann’s far western New York or in Virginia’s Butterflies & Blooms Briar Patch Habitat in Eatonton, Georgia, they light up meadow or a garden. My own experience with them, irregardless of where I’ve seen them, is that they. like Grand Central Station, remain unvisited, until sometime around 9:45 A.M.-ish, butterflies and bees appear, without apparent signal, and the butterflyweed is mobbed by flying animals: butterflies, bees, wasps & flies. Twenty five minutes later, all visitors have left, and the flowerheads are quiet again.

This is the very best place to find Coral Hairstreak butterflies, those tiny winged beauties that like young starlets or young models or aspiring Amherst grads, arrive at Grand Central Station shortly before 9:00 A.M., and. within minutes are all gone, off to wherever.

Butterflyweed is an Asclepias (Milkweed) and this is one of Monarch caterpillars’ favorite foods!

Consider it for that sunny, slightly moist spot in your natives beds.

Jeff

Success by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Posted February 26, 2018

Filed under Flowers Loved by Butterflies, Native Plants and Flowers, Pittsburgh, PA, Wildflowers

Ralph Waldo Emerson And . . . The Garden I Said Goodbye To In ’12

Winged Beauty Butterflies

I have read this often, and attempt to emulate it in my own life, whether gardening to attract winged beauties, or with family and friends, in my spiritual life, and in the field, as I attempt to capture ever more beautiful images of butterflies, darners, wildflowers, whatever . . . .

Success
To laugh often and to love much . . .
To win the respect of intelligent persons
and the affections of children . . . To earn
the approbation of honest critics and to
endure the betrayal of false friends , , ,
To appreciate beauty; to give of one’s self . . .
To leave the world a bit better whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch, or
a redeemed social condition . . .
To laugh and play with enthusiasm and to sing with
exultation and to know that one life
has breathed easier because…

View original post 66 more words

Success by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Posted December 11, 2014

Filed under Flowers Loved by Butterflies, Native Plants and Flowers, Other Insects, Pittsburgh, PA, Wildflowers

Success

To laugh often and to love much . . .
To win the respect of intelligent persons
and the affections of children . . . To earn
the approbation of honest critics and to
endure the betrayal of false friends , , ,
To appreciate beauty; to give of one’s self . . .
To leave the world a bit better whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch, or
a redeemed social condition . . .
To laugh and play with enthusiasm and to sing with
exultation and to know that one life
has breathed easier because you have lived –
. . . That is to succeed . . .

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

This perennial garden that I loved brought butterflies from great distances, nurtured scores of butterflies, bees, moths and ruby-throateds, the latter coming every hour on the hour. It brought joy to family, though concealed from the world, as it grew behind the house, and remained unknown to most.

Jeff