bird poop | Winged Beauty Butterflies

Azure Butterflies on Fecies photographed by Jeff Zablow at Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

For us, finding a butterfly 1 millimeter from bird droppings, with its proboscis extended into the white part of the bird scat (poop), is expectable, even a relief. Why? We know that lots of butterflies will remain in place, even on our practiced approach. We know why.

For those of you who do not pursue butterflies, who do not try to capture fine images of them, this scene is . . . what? Disgusting.

Understand this. This Spring Azure Butterfly is probably a male. He surely has flown for hours. Why? Flow here there and everywhere, seeking a female. His DNA is continuously instructing him to find a female, and couple with her. This to insure that this fine male’s strong characteristics are propelled into the next generation.

Why bird scat? Why the white, liquid part of bird poop? That white glomp is actually the excretion produced from the bird it came from, rich in the Nitrogen released from the muscle proteins that have kept the bird aloft, those same muscle protein becoming worn-out, and in need of replacement.

This Spring Azure is harvesting that Nitric Acid rich excretion, will use the Nitrogen in it to synthesize (form) new wing muscle protein, vital to the coming hours of near continuous flight, until those females are met.

The working of the Universe is amazing. Hey, I loved to teach High School Biology. Loved it. (Raccoon Creek State Park, southwestern Pennsylvania, 8 hours west of the Sopranos’ New Jersey).

Jeff

Giant Swallowtail caterpillar photographed by Jeff Zablow at the Butterflies and Blooms Habitat in Eatonton, GA

You may travel to Paris, Nepal, New Zealand, and revel. Me, I bonkers! to travel to Putnam County, and well, revel! Maybe its those 12 or so years working in Manhattan, first from my East Village office on E. 6th, near Cooper Square, then on the 23rd floor on E. 43rd and 3rd Avenue, and finally uptown on E.87th, near the Mayor’s Gracie Mansion. Why, because when you’re in those locales, Paris, New Zealand and Nepal, are the guy 2 doors down, or the woman across the street. It’s that cosmopolitan thing, me thinks.

I never thought of caterpillars like this one back in those ’80’s. Those horizons were limited, growing my business then, and thriving my family and underpinnings were center stage for me. Then things changed, and our covered wagon headed to Pittsburgh. No more bricks/mortar, back to high school teaching (Biology) . . . and a probable progression to this pleasing pursuit, butterflies. No more street kid (with interesting friends), no more NYARNG with my cop buddies, no more AP Biology, no more H.S. Dean (Discipline) and those knives/guns, no more rising realtor headed to the stars, and with the kids almost grown, with Frieda A”H’s battle with Non-Hodgkins/Stem Cell transplant/Leukemia, I know I did a whole lot of thinking . . . retired and . . .

My horizons shot out in all directions, and conversely, to one direction. I wanted to produce good or better images of butterflies, in the wild. Not in France’s outlying places, or in the mountains of Nepal/rain forests or in everyone-loves New Zealand.

I am accused of getting giddy when Stanley Lines or Virginia C Linch lead me over to a Giant Swallowtail caterpillar in the Butterflies & Blooms Briar Patch Habitat, in inviting Eatonton, Georgia. This one, like the others, looks like bird Poop! Why does it look so much like a blob of digestive waste/uric acid lumps? How do they survive, as they remain in place, sessile, with predators available and nearby? Moult? Eclose? Fly?

This me, is so Thankful that my horizons are so rolled out, way out. In one year, this 2016, Giant cats, Eastern Pygmy Blue butterflies, Little Metalmark butterflies, Bog Coppers, Juniper Hairstreak butterflies, Zebra Heliconian butterflies, and a slew of new acquaintances, who demand that they are “friends.” I Love the ring of that. And the siren call of Texas, western North Carolina, Vancouver Island, and Maine, very northern Maine???

Giant cats? I just stand there and look at them. Stare. Most mornings in the field, I stop and I look up a bit, think of such as Giant cats, and whisper, Thank Y-o.

Jeff