Calling All Striped Hairstreaks

Posted May 6, 2020

Filed under Hairstreak, Powdermill Refuge, PA

I haven’t seen one for years, many years. They fly from Toronto to Northern Florida, but I haven’t seen one for more than a decade, much more than a decade.

Here’s the first Striped Hairstreak that I ever saw, at the Powdermill Refuge in Rector, near Ligonier, Pennsylvania. I’ll never forget such a beautiful butterfly, it remaining for many minutes, serene and unphased by my Macro- approach.

Glassberg’s A Swift Guide to the Butterflies of North America describes them as “R-U” (Rare-Uncommon) and after having been banned from Powdermill, I’ve not seen one since. Come to think of it, that is the only place I’ve ever been banned from?

Just moved to the Macon, Georgia(Where Little Richard grew up) and feeling-Striped Hairstreak deprived, we’ve planted 2 Black Cherry trees, their hostplant. Calling all Striped Hairstreaks . . .

Jeff

Vegas Says You’ll Never Meet This One

Posted July 30, 2019

Filed under Allenberg Bog, NY, Copper

Dorsal View of Bog Copper Butterfly, photographed by Jeff Zablow at Allenberg Bog in New York

Jeff sooo wanted to meet up with Bog Copper (Lycaena epixanthe) butterflies. Barbara Ann shared that there was a little known, almost never visited bog near her home, Allenberg Bog, in very western New York State. We agreed that Allenberg may have Bog Coppers, if we go during their very brief ‘flight.’

When to go? They only fly when their hostplant, cranberries, are going into flower.

The opportunity to finally meet this rare butterfly, found only in cranberry bogs in New York, New England, Michigan and Minnesota, was too sweet to pass up.

We followed a very overgrown trail, from where we parked on the side of the road, and after several wrong readings of almost non-existent trail markers, there was Allenberg Bog, replete with Pitcher Plants and Sundew Plants in bloom. The tiny bog cranberries were also in bloom, and there were the Bog Coppers, they something past the mid-point of their brief flight.

Here is a Bog Copper, perched on Cranberry leaf. She was adorable, and I had met, and shot Bog Coppers. Not need to mention how I almost sunk down toooo deep into that unfathomable bog’s depth.

You? Vegas passes on that Your chance of seeing one, at the rate you’re going is 726 to 1.

Jeff

Where Do You Find A Salt Marsh Skipper?

Posted November 8, 2018

Filed under Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA, Skipper

Exactly! And that’s where I met this handsome example. This Salt Marsh Skipper was nectaring in the ‘butterfly’ garden at the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge near Townsend, Georgia. We were at the coast, just moments from the nearest Saltgrass, their hostplant.

They fly in the salt marshes of the United States, from Massachusetts, along the coastline all the way to Texas. They among the grass skippers. They’re easy to identify, with that long horizontal pale strip on their hindwings.

They are very kind, much tolerating the intrusion of the Macro- camera lens, to just inches from them. It seems that nectar near totally dominates their being, and my approach, no problem!

They ground me in reality. We sometimes get too big for ourselves, asking why this or that creature ‘deserves’ to continue its existence. Would not a nice development of fine homes be more important than that population of skipper butterflies that lived there for say, 200 years? Uh, NO. I’d say that there are some 200 or more good reasons to splat! that suggestion, as we do to Musca domestics on a July day.

Jef