Tag Archives: birds

On The Lookout For That ‘KISS’ Thingee

Posted
Filed under Eatonton, GA, Swallowtail

I saw one in my garden in April. She was almost fresh, and she was determined. Fortunately, we now have what? 6 Hercules Club young shrubs. Days later, we found 3 tiny Giant Swallowtail caterpillars. It didn’t turn out well, for by some 9 or so days later, they were gone. Predators (birds, lizards, wasps, etc.).

These last years, that I’ve met and enjoyed these graceful, BIG swallowtail butterflies, I’ve been teased by a challenging thought. Their dorsal pattern of bright yellow cells reminds me of something. What?

Opened this image, taken at Virginia’s Butterflies & Blooms Briar Patch Habitat, right here in Eatonton, Georgia, and I got it!

Know I’m a Rock ‘N Roller, so I’m not too conversant with KISS, but is this not like close to looking like their logo? KISS wrought Big?

Me? I expect Giants to reappear by the middle of this very July 2019.

Jeff

I Photograph Butterflies

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Filed under Ft Federica Saint Simons Island, GA, Hairstreak

Gray Hairstreak photographed by Jeff Zablow at Fort Federica, Saint Simons Island, GA

It’s frustrating to watch sylvan habitat lost to development. I’ve been bemoaning the loss since as far as I can recall. That must have begun when I was some 12 years old, and fine ‘bay-side’ land was invaded by bulldozers in the Arverne Section of Rockaway Beach, in New York City’s Queens. I roamed those acres before the ‘dozers came, and their loss, even for a wide awake 12-year old, was forever irreversible.

We didn’t travel at all, and I had no idea how vast the United States were. Pre-teen me thought that soon there’d  be nothing left between Brooklyn and Los Angeles (where many of my friends ended up moving to).

It sure may well be that I still retain that apprehension that butterflies and orchids (didn’t know about natives back then) and bumblebees and darners and such will disappear, on my ‘watch.’ It’s true that back in about the 4th grade, in Public School 244 in Brooklyn, my teacher told us that bald eagles, beavers, and mountain lions would all be gone, during our lifetimes. I’ll never forget that, for it was clear that I’d never even get a chance to see them, except for those sad, forlorn captives in the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn.

So there I was celebrating the losses sure to come, of so much, including plants and animals that were then unknown to me: wildflowers, trees, snakes, lizards, birds (I still hate knowing that the Ivory Billed Woodpecker is lost), bison, the Eastern Timber Wolf, the Regal Fritillary Butterfly that flew where my East 58th Street, Brooklyn house stood, when the British and Hessians marched through there, as they prepared to make their pincer attack on New York, New York.

I am thrilled to go into the bush to find and photograph butterflies. They are still flying, and often in good enough numbers to dissuade me from believing my 4th grade teacher.

There are way too few of us, who seek and shoot butterflies, but that’s what we are doing, and will seek to continue to do. My move, 2 years ago to central Georgia’s Piedmont region pleased me, for there I’ve seen so many new butterflies, some of them in my own yard, it, now busy with hostplants whose siren aromatic signals draw butterflies that we greet with Oohs! and Aahs!

I photograph butterflies, as for example this spiffy Gray Hairstreak.

Jeff

Butterfly Peril #1 ?

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Filed under Eatonton, GA, Sulphur

Argiope with sulphur prey photographed by Jeff Zablow at the Butterflies and Blooms Habitat in Eatonton, GA

At night in bushes, perennials and trees? I’m not sure I can count all of the perils that butterflies face: ants, beetles, lizards, spiders, birds, snakes, assassin bugs . . . . During the day this same list balloons, with legions of additional predators that prey on butterflies.

When you run wingedbeauty.com, and are at the Butterflies & Blooms Briar Patch Habitat here in Eatonton, Georgia so many of these predators are met in real-time. Now, you know that images of a predator preying on a beautiful butterfly immobilized, make many cringe, darken their mood instantly.

I have long thought about the urgency of helping interested people learn about butterflies. Habitat disappears by the minute, pesticides and their ilk kill, and long ago I thought about how the USA”s millions of pristine, grass covered gardens deter butterfly survival. We discussed this back in John Adams High School in South Ozone Park, New York, in the 1970’s, on a much simpler level. With Doug Tallaway’s book, I personally understood. wingedbeauty.com is a platform to share, see and understand.

So, when I stood there, and saw this Cloudless Sulphur butterfly in the web of this Black and Yellow Argiope spider, maybe 4 seconds after the Cloudless took a sad turn in flight . . . I first wondered if y’all had the stomach for this very natural scene and I knew I’d have own debate some time later, post it or not post it?

Me? I’m glad I’m not a butterfly. The dangers are many. I fought each and every one I had to in Brooklyn, back then. This Cloudless not only has no defense against attack, but choose turning left instead of right, and you’re ‘chopped liver.’

Jeff

Butterfly Realities

Posted
Filed under Eatonton, GA, Locations for Butterflies

Argiope with sulphur prey photographed by Jeff Zablow at the Butterflies and Blooms Habitat in Eatonton, GA

I’m glad that I don’t see this too often. Y’all know that I am fond of butterflies. I’ve never ever caught one in a net, never pinned a beautiful, fresh butterfly to a small cardboard and for sure never ever caught one to sell to collectors in Tucson, Manila or Beijing.

Human poachers collect for their own collection or for money. That upsets me, for especially when they finally locate a small rare population, say with 50 butterflies at the most, who do they seek? They search for the strongest, most perfect 2 males and 2 females. Catch them, and desolate the vibrance of the remaining tiny population, by removing the strong, hearty individuals from the endangered gene pool.

Butterfly realities may be difficult to understand. Hard reality does require serious contemplation. G-d made all of these creatures, for good reason. Those that prey on animals, the spiders, wasps, beetles in the trees at night, robber flies, lizards, frogs, mice, dragonflies, snakes, birds, bats, they all depend on butterflies for their 1% to 15% of their prey. This really, really bothered me decades ago. 40 or more years of thinking has led me to conclude that the academics are correct, this is a very well organized system, and it has worked this who knows how many years. And it will work, well beyond our days.

This Black and Yellow Argiope has caught a yellow/sulphur butterfly in her web. Her sticky protein strands have done their job well, and she now will go to feast on her gossamer-winged prey.

Those who never consider such predator-prey relationships, are much aggrieved. Won’t this 1 event trigger the disappearance of this species of butterfly??

No it will not. There are offsets here. The mother butterfly who produced this imperiled offspring did not lay 1 egg. She more than likely set out 100 eggs. Those 100 caterpillars hatched will see high losses to another long list of predators. The chrysalises produced will suffer losses to the elements and to desperate predators. How many adults butterflies will eclose from those odd cases? Oh, let’s say 21. Those 21 adult yellow/sulphur butterflies must fly in the territory of dragonflies, blue jays, mockingbirds, even the sweet and beloved bluebirds. At night, when they roost in trees and bushes, snakes, beetles, lizards and more appear, and . . . !

Butterfly realities make me appreciate my home, my locked door, Petra and . . . . the law enforcement men and women who give us peace of mind and a watchful eye.

Butterflies & Blooms in the Briar Patch Habitat, Eatonton, Georgia.

Jeff