Copper Butterflies | 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

Once you’ve passed that 30-year old plateau, the complexity of your neighborhood, town/city, state, country . . . and the larger world out there, begin to concern you. No? There are all of those weighty ‘problems’ that experts assure you must be confronted, and overcome. Few of us wither under the volume of these issues, but they do capture vital corner of our brains.

Good then that all who come to see our blog, and blogs like it, happily soar to higher bliss when we meet the countless triumphs that we find in the field. Here we share one.

One-half of the morning has slipped by, and the field in Mishmarot, Israel has delivered up a large number of fresh, vital butterflies. That’s good. Better again came this sighting. A pair of Lesser Fiery Copper butterflies, mating. Wow! Healthy, active, color-rich butterflies striving to produce progeny. What an uplifting moment. Wild beings navigating their world of open spaces, determined to produce the best, most vigorous offspring, and unconsciously depending upon us to support their existence and their relatively minute life space. An instantaneous wash-away of any and all anxious concerns, those replaced by: Life is good, and these butterflies seem to encourage us to keep it that way.

Jeff