street kid | Winged Beauty Butterflies

Tropical Greenstreak butterfly photographed by Jeff Zablow at 'The Wall,' Mission, TX

While we were at the “Wall” (the entrance to the Retama Village walled development in Mission, Texas) the word went out, “Tropical Greenstreak!” A cell network exists, and the cars began arriving, more and more cars pulled up on the grass. This is a ‘stray’ to the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Hundreds of folks have moved here from different parts of the U.S. Fortunate to retire healthy, they chose to resettle here, and enjoy the squadrons of common, rare, and very rare butterflies that show up here.

A squad of enthusiasts surrounded the bushes that this tiny Gossamerwing chose to nectar on. They all formed a semicircle, most some 10 feet from our star here. All were using long lenses. Uh oh! Jeff shoots . . . Macro-. It got interesting. I cannot focus on this beauty from 10 feet away., Macro-, for such a tiny, tiny butterfly can produced images 1:1 . . . as long as you are no farther than say 24″ (inches) from this Tropical green streak.

So, the kid from Brooklyn went low, and kind of duck walked under the enthusiasts, and approached, too low to block their cameras. I asked G-d the whole time, please don’t let this gem fly because of me!! Sure many of you have seen me in photos shared here on wingedbeauty.com. I’m in my majority, it’s true. But like many guys, I think young, and truth be told, the scrapper of a street kid is still to be found within.

I sensed that the small crowd behind me was, how can I say, “upset.” Me, I was as careful as if I was trying to snatch raw wildebeest from a napping lioness. This hairstreak did not flee, and continued off and on to nectar.

I stepped back as carefully as I had gone in, low and robotic. I stuck around there for many minutes, the crowd continued to change as some came and so I went. I went in again, for with film, you never know what you reap. Again my old street sense told me that the folks behind me were the other side of upset with me. Macro- folks are just not what the locals have much patience with. I shot-out again, and once again backed away, low and pleased.

Later I asked someone who had been there, what the folks were thinking, when Boy Brooklyn made his approaches? “Selfish” is what they were thinking (sharing?). That bit, because I don’t ever want to be thought of that way.

Why did I do what I did? 1) I had to if I wanted to see this butterfly (I don’t carry binos, too much weight, bulk). 2) Our audience here grows, steadily. I want You to see and examine and admire these butterflies, and to do that, Jeff went in low and straight, and if this sweetie had been a lioness, I’d for sure have a good 18% chance of surviving for another day.

Brooklyn stokes the anger of the Retama vigilantes.

Jeff

Giant Swallowtail caterpillar photographed by Jeff Zablow at the Butterflies and Blooms Habitat in Eatonton, GA

You may travel to Paris, Nepal, New Zealand, and revel. Me, I bonkers! to travel to Putnam County, and well, revel! Maybe its those 12 or so years working in Manhattan, first from my East Village office on E. 6th, near Cooper Square, then on the 23rd floor on E. 43rd and 3rd Avenue, and finally uptown on E.87th, near the Mayor’s Gracie Mansion. Why, because when you’re in those locales, Paris, New Zealand and Nepal, are the guy 2 doors down, or the woman across the street. It’s that cosmopolitan thing, me thinks.

I never thought of caterpillars like this one back in those ’80’s. Those horizons were limited, growing my business then, and thriving my family and underpinnings were center stage for me. Then things changed, and our covered wagon headed to Pittsburgh. No more bricks/mortar, back to high school teaching (Biology) . . . and a probable progression to this pleasing pursuit, butterflies. No more street kid (with interesting friends), no more NYARNG with my cop buddies, no more AP Biology, no more H.S. Dean (Discipline) and those knives/guns, no more rising realtor headed to the stars, and with the kids almost grown, with Frieda A”H’s battle with Non-Hodgkins/Stem Cell transplant/Leukemia, I know I did a whole lot of thinking . . . retired and . . .

My horizons shot out in all directions, and conversely, to one direction. I wanted to produce good or better images of butterflies, in the wild. Not in France’s outlying places, or in the mountains of Nepal/rain forests or in everyone-loves New Zealand.

I am accused of getting giddy when Stanley Lines or Virginia C Linch lead me over to a Giant Swallowtail caterpillar in the Butterflies & Blooms Briar Patch Habitat, in inviting Eatonton, Georgia. This one, like the others, looks like bird Poop! Why does it look so much like a blob of digestive waste/uric acid lumps? How do they survive, as they remain in place, sessile, with predators available and nearby? Moult? Eclose? Fly?

This me, is so Thankful that my horizons are so rolled out, way out. In one year, this 2016, Giant cats, Eastern Pygmy Blue butterflies, Little Metalmark butterflies, Bog Coppers, Juniper Hairstreak butterflies, Zebra Heliconian butterflies, and a slew of new acquaintances, who demand that they are “friends.” I Love the ring of that. And the siren call of Texas, western North Carolina, Vancouver Island, and Maine, very northern Maine???

Giant cats? I just stand there and look at them. Stare. Most mornings in the field, I stop and I look up a bit, think of such as Giant cats, and whisper, Thank Y-o.

Jeff