Skipper Butterfly at Eastern Neck

Posted June 18, 2020

Filed under Eastern Neck Wildlife Refuge, Rock Hall, MD, Skipper

Skipper Butterfly photographed by Jeffrey Zablow in Eastern Neck National Wildlife refuge, MD

True Confession? Many of the Skipper Butterflies are so similar, that even now, their identity eludes me. Take this one for example. I found it at Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. This Refuge is very close to Chesapeake Bay, and its flora and fauna are vibrant and robust. It’s a bit more than an hour’s drive from Washington DC.

So, after working through Glassberg’s A Swift Guide to Butterflies, I offer that this one is a . . . Broad-winged Skipper, perhaps the only one I’ve ever seen. It was a bit large for a Skipper and was found near their preferred habitat, tidal marshes.

Skipper Aficinados?

Jeff

Want To See A Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak Butterfly?

Posted May 10, 2020

Filed under Hairstreak, National Butterfly Center, Mission, TX

Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak Butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow at the National Butterfly Center, Mission, TX

Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself, that you cannot see America’s butterflies when you just feel like seeing them. Some fly when snow is still on the ground, others fly in the Spring, late Spring, early Summer, mid-Summer, late Summer, early Fall. Here in Georgia some fly in the late Fall.

Where do they fly? Meadows, Fens, Marshes, Wetlands, Forest, Thick Forest, Salt Marshes, Mountain Slopes, Different Elevations, Rock Falls, Water Seeps . . . and on on.

This Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak butterfly flies in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, near the border wall with Mexico.

I met it at the National Butterfly Center‘s perennial gardens in Mission, Texas – near the famous border wall.

My eyes immediately go to that large black spot on its hindwing, deliciously surrounded by a sweet orange rind circle. Those cute ‘tails’ and spiffy hindwing black semicircles rimmed with white, also catch my eye.

Jeff

Thanksgiving Day Telescoped

Posted November 22, 2018

Filed under Audubon Community Nature Center, Jamestown, NY, Checkerspot

Sitting here at my iMac computer with its 27″ screen, and just out my window, here in central. Georgia what do I see? Cloudless Sulphur butterflies flying, seriously visiting the few native flowers in my November 22nd garden. I’m pleased, very.

I have so much to be Thankful for, my birthday just 6 days away. My family has its health, I have this, my strong, fulfilling interest, and, and 2019 beckons, calls to me. I am ready, willing and able to scour 2019 fens, meadows, marshes, medium mountains, swamps and such to find new and beautiful butterflies. Thank Y-u for That.

You’re seeing one of my top favorites images, a Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly seen at the Audubon Community Nature Center in Jamestown, New York. I very much want to enjoy such moments again, want 2019 to be a Bust-Out year for Boy Brooklyn.

So my impetuous mind is accelerating to the possible trips I’d love to make, with my brain trying hard to hit the brakes gently, with practical considerations galore.

I keep thinking Big Bend Wildlife Management Area in the Florida Panhandle. Lynx Prairie and Kamamama Prairie in Adams County, Ohio. Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge on the Georgia coast. Okefenokee Swamp here in Georgia. The Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

All this telescoping ahead teases with other Wow! possibilities = Why not travel to find those Very Very rare butterflies that I’ve day dreamed of seeing for these many years: A very rare Satyr in Alabama; Pyle’s beloved Magdalena Alpine; the Bog Fritillary up north, a slew of Metalmarks; those Buckwheat loving Blues; the Sonoran Blue and a bunch of western USA Coppers.

Thanksgiving Day. A day to consider what you have to be Thankful for, a for such as us, a day to dream of future meet-ups with G-d’s winged beauties.

Jeff