the shore | Winged Beauty Butterflies

Pseudophilotes Vicrama butterfly, photographed by Jeff Zablow at Ramat Hanadiv, Israel

Less than 2 miles from the shore of the Mediterranean Ocean, in the HolyLand, I scoured the hills of Ramat Hanadiv Refuge for butterflies. This north of Tel Aviv expansive reserve is an excellent destination to find butterflies and rare botany. On site they have an excellent restaurant for lunch, and at the end of each morning, I would make sure to enjoy an excellent meal, in their windowed dining room, with good view of the planted gardens.

That day I found this Pseudophilotes Vicrama butterfly, with its pleasant dotted ventral surface, flash of iridescent purplish dorsal wing surface and as you look closer, that sweet red dot. Angling to include the cute purple bloom seen to the right, the whole of the image pleases me, it does.

Butterflies, rare plants, wildlife and ruins, with a large parking lot, view of the Mediterranean Sea and excellent restaurant on site, more than enough, no?

Jeff

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

Straight To The Point I will go. I was at Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge in the Delmarva peninsula of Maryland. This largish skipper was seen quietly resting, some 200 feet or so from the shore of the Chesepeake Bay. Here he (?) is. Skipper bedevil me. After spending much time with Glassberg’s A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America, I continue to be stumped? What skipper is this? Crossline skipper?

Harry, Jeffrey, Mr. Pyle, . . . the loneliness of the long distance runner is what we reveal here. Anyway, where did that line come from?

Will the heavyweights ever come out? I sure would like that . . .

Jeff