Red’s Unscheduled Stops

Posted July 23, 2017

Filed under Admiral, Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

Forget making an appointment to meet a Red Admiral butterfly. They just never show up! It’s futile to think that if you at a certain garden or trail, at a certain time, that you’ll meet up. Does not happen.

This is the butterfly of Unscheduled Stops. Seemingly no itinerary, they make fly in and nectar briefly, ‘though most of the time they disregard your blooms, and if do they show, they land on your garden walk, inspect that all is as it should be, and are soon gone.

When they do make an appearance, experienced butterfly lovers recognize that immediately, what with those bright reddish-orange stripes crossing each forewing. There’s nothing like them.

Me? Their name, Vanessa has always transfixed me. Vanessa, such a mystical name. Then my mind goes to that actress whom I have no patience for, Vanessa Redgrave, whose politics leave a bad taste in my mouth. Why did she have to get such an otherwise wild name?

I’ve not seen many Red Admirals this 2017. The last one I saw was in Lynx Prairie Preserve, in Adams County, Ohio. Of course I saw it for moments, as it promptly left, as is their habit, leaving you abruptly, wondering, “What’s the rush?”

Jeff

Saw Him at the Dead Sea

Posted July 10, 2017

Filed under Binyamina, Israel, Salmon Arab

A bust out! butterfly for me, 7,000 miles from my home, there he is, I found this one and some others. The Blue Arab butterfly, Colotis phisadia. Tel Aviv? No. Jerusalem? No. The Mediterranean coast? No. Galilee? No. Golan? No.

To see this unusual ‘white’ butterfly, you had to travel in Israel, to its eastern borders, at the Dead Sea, or to the eastern Sinai desert, where for sure you’d be kidnapped by who knows what terrorist group, or by just as interesting locals.

Me, I took a train from Binyamina, Israel south to Beersheva, then a bus to Ein Gedi. I stayed several days in the SPNI field houses there. I hiked from the field house where I stayed to this Wadi (sizable dry river bed). Along the side of the wadi I found them, Blue Arabs. Sooo difficult to approach, nearly impossible to get a good macro- image, and the sun pouring down hot all the time.

I wanted my own images of the Blue Arab. I had hoped that you’d enjoy seeing a butterfly that is different, and that won’t come to you. You’d have to come to it, in the boiling sun, in wadis far, far from Madison, Pittsburgh, Brooklyn, Frewsburg or Silver Spring.

Congrats! for you’ve seen the uncommon Blue Arab butterfly. Other places to see them? Jordan, that Sinai ( again, loaded with terrorists ), and Saudi Arabia.

Jeff

Adios Empress Leila . . .

Posted July 9, 2017

Filed under Empress Leilia, White Tank Mtn. Regional Park, AZ

Empress Leila Butterfly photographed by Jeffrey Zablow in White Tank Mountains Regional Park, Arizona

We who travel to find new butterflies, capture, rich, sweet memories. As the years go by, those memories pile onto one another. It’s good to occasionally shake those mental ‘piles,’ and free-up some of the earlier recollections.

Grandma Lehman, my mother-in-law, lived for many years in Sun City West, Arizona. That enormous Del Webb town, for seniors, was just about 30 minutes from White Tank Mountains Regional Park. When we visited Eda, every morning I could, I’d drive to White Tank Mountains, leaving around 6:30 A.M.. The sun is so strong in those beautiful mountains, that working trails in the arroyos had to cease at 10-10:15 A.M.. Stay any later, in those boulder-strewn arroyos, and risk heat stroke/exhaustion and alone as I was, death. An earlier post here describes my brush with death, when I was having so much success working that arroyo, that it Hit Me! without warning. I struggled to get back through the arroyo, and prayed . . . .

Grandma Lehman had a very serious stroke event recently, at age 95. Five and one-half years in a series of German concentration camps, and she is still with us, in a Brooklyn, NY senior home. Hitler? She survived and now has upwards of 30 great grandchildren. Thank G-d our children never will have to know a life where getting your hands on potato peels was something only to dream of. Best keep America strong, No?

With the Arizona house sold, I will surely no longer enjoy this Empress Leila butterfly, a closely related butterfly to several eastern USA butterfly species. We used to meet one another in those very arroyos. I’d see solitary ones perched as here, on sun-baked boulders on the arroyo floor. Approach, it flees, and we continue this until that predictable moment, when the Empress would remain on a boulder, and tolerate my robotic approach. They were fun to pursue, just so long as you keep one eye on the time, or you risk becoming a butterfly photographer memory (for about the last thing I’d do back then was use my cell to call 911 for rescue! Men!!).

Jeff

Coral Hairstreaks Seen in Adams County

Posted July 3, 2017

Filed under Flowers Loved by Butterflies, Hairstreak

Coral HairstreakButterfly at Raccoon Creek State Park

Met this sweetheart of a Coral Hairstreak butterfly several years ago in Raccoon Creek State Park. Just 3 paces away was its favorite sugary nectar source, Butterflyweed, a milkweed. I cannot recall ever seeing Corals two years in a row. They seem to skip certain years, especially those that suffer a lack of butterflyweed. How they skip years, well that’s a fine doctoral pursuit for that bright young cousin of yours.

Today I dropped off 152 slides with Katie at Rewind Memories ( Pittsburgh ). They were shot in Israel, Georgia, Ohio and very western New York State. I cannot wait to share them with you, in the coming weeks, for they include some very nice butterflies and wildflowers, including orchids.

Among those 152 are images of . . . Corals seen in Kamama Prairie in Adams County, Ohio. Just a short drive to the Kentucky border, this county was everything Angela Carter said it would be.

The butterflyweed was peak, lush and gorgeous that day, about 2-3 weeks ago. Great Spangled Fritillaries were flying to and fro around the butterflyweed flowerheads. I waded into the prairie, hoping to find the elusive Coral hairstreak. Did I? You bet I did. A couple of them were patiently working the butterflyweed flowers. They seriously cooperate when you find them, for they allow a very close approach, and they move ever so slowly from bloom to bloom.

I have a fondness for Corals, their coral spots evoke those spectacular coral stones used in the making of the finest jewelry, the kind that Chinese buyers bid for premiums at Sotheby’s and Christie’s in New York and London.

A good year this, for Jeff found his corals. What do you think Patti would design with such coral gems, over there in Golden?

Jeff

Maniola Won’t Come . . . For Sure

Posted May 10, 2017

Filed under Maniola Telmessia, Mt. Meron, Israel

Maniola Telmessia butterfly (female) photographed by Jeff Zablow at Mt. Meron, Israel

Petra and I just came back from our long walk into Frick Park. She as usual walked beautifully, when no dogs were nearby. When an owner came along with a dog, she did her lunge to play thing. Dogs large and small do not, do not, take this well, and it’s often, drama. Petra is a Black Russian, and though a graduate of several obedience programs, that Black Russian thing is always there. Much of that time my mind was mostly on the FedEx package, expected before 10:30 AM, overnighted from Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas, USA. We now have many followers around the world, thus the vital USA mention.

Maniola telmessia, the butterfly here, is not among the images coming home to me. During those 4 weeks in Israel (March 28 to April 25). Didn’t see a single one there, not in the upper Golan, nor in the top of the Galilee, and not in Ramat Hanadiv, or Mishmarot, or in the ‘Alligator’ River Park, near Hadera. Maniola should/could have been seen, but butterflies fly when they fly, and many factors determine that.

Shooting with film (Fuji Velvia 50/100) forces you to be patient. I’ve not seen them, some for 5 weeks. Don’t know which will be OMG! or which will disappoint. There were many ‘I hope this looks like it looks here!’ opportunities. Only when I haul out my lighbox, and use my loupe to examine each and every one, will you know I’ve scored winners! You’ll know when you hear that faint ‘Yay!‘ coming from Pittsburgh, all the way to Eatonton, Frewsburg, Frisco, Macon, Oxford, Shellman Bluff, Gibbstown, Whitbey Island, Lilburn, France, the Netherlands, Vancouver Island, Poland . . .

Oh, and I finished The Thunder Tree by Robert Michael Pyle (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993) today, my 2nd read. That sent me here, to share.

Jeff