Comely Swamp Wildflowers

Posted October 9, 2018

Filed under Akeley Swamp NY, Native Plants and Flowers, Wildflowers

Wildflowers (Unidentified) photographed by Jeff Zablow at Akeley Swamp, NY

Akeley Swamp was a feast for the eyes and the other senses. It was late June 2018. This very western New York State Swamp sported several hundred thousand Common Milkweed blooms that sunny, windless day. Here and there we were treated to fresh Canada Lilies. At the tiny bridge over the trail, we could see the same Cardinal flower plants we’d seen before, they some 2 days or so away from spilling their lipstick-red blooms.

It was a flawless day, expect . . . for a dearth of butterflies. Happily, I did see my first ever Hickory Hairstreak butterfly. The air lanes were free of butterflies though. We discussed this odd lack of butterflies, but we had no explanation for it.

With fewer butterflies, I had more time to see it all. I saw these wildflowers, they growing on the edge of the Swamp. Real-time, this is exactly their color. I liked their look, guessing . . . Mallow?

Please be so kind as to help me ID them? They did charm me, but their name?

Jeff

3 Demure Pink’s

Posted September 6, 2016

Filed under Chapman State Park, PA, Native Orchids, Native Plants and Flowers, Wildflowers

Pink Lady's Slipper wildflower, photographed by Jeff Zablow at Chapman State Park, NY

June 2016, and Petra and I stayed in cabin CC! at Chapman State Park, awaiting the Presentation that I would give on June 3rd at the Jamestown Audubon Center. Western New York is lush, beautiful, and the Mother Lode for wildlife and wildflowers.

I reconnoitered the very same spot we found the year before, at about the same stretch of June. Could not find what I was looking for the first day I searched, but the next day there they were. A loosely spread-out grouping of Pink Lady’s Slippers. America’s favorite native orchids.

The operative word is ‘demure.’ Random House’s Webster College Dictionary define demure as coyly decorous. These 3 wildflowers struck me as little princesses, coyly posed there, shyly presenting their radiant freshness and beauty.

I Love these blooms. They set my heart ablaze, TBT.

Jeff

NB, We leave for Georgia in 2 days. Will be offline during that time, and I’ll be scouring that sylvan state for winged beauties and green, lush wildflowers . . .

A “Not So Common” Wood Nymph

Posted December 12, 2015

Filed under Clay Pond Preserve, Frewsburg, NY, Wood Nymph

Years ago, at Raystown Lake in Central Pennsylvania, I saw Common Wood Nymph butterflies whose blue centered eye-spots dazzled me. I worked that habitat for a single day, and never forgot how those eye-spots evoked memories of fine gems, that I’d seen in Christies’, Sotheby’s and Dole’s magnificent jewelry auction galleries in New York.

Since then, I’ve sought to find comparable Common Wood Nymphs. Little success there.

This year I visited Clay Pond, a New York State conserved wetland. Not the New York metropolitan area that I came to have a love/hate relationship with, but Western New York, green and pristine. High grasses surrounded the Pond, and there were lots of butterflies. Seeing them was difficult, because their flights were short, quickly descending down into the tightly set grasses and sedges.

This one showed itself, then went into the above, fly up, descend to hide, flee my approach through the grass (which must have been easily detected). After repeated escapes from me, it descended, and stayed, hiding and resting.

As I closed in, Bazoom! It was gorgeous. Those eye-spots, baby blue, and circled by light orange rings, all against a background of Stetson hat chocolate brown. It shot, shot,shot. Waited for my slides to be returned from Dwayne’s Photo, and Yippee Eye Ay, Yippee Eye Oh!! A satyr image, Good enough to share.

Jeff

Add More Blue . . .

Posted October 8, 2015

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

Our last share was a blue butterfly 7,000 miles away, in the northernmost foothills of Israel. That serene winged beauty was less than a mile from the nearest terrorist outpost of Hezbollah. Only barbed wire, mine fields and a daunting Israeli resolve insure that Jeff and the common blue butterfly enjoyed that morning together.

Back here in the States, this Eastern Tailed Blue flies in terrorist free habitat, Thank G-d, in the verdant Jamestown Audubon Center’s sizable meadow. As I jockeyed for a good vantage point, and went down on my left knee pad, I was pleased to see that he was handsomely colored. A shmeksy butterfly, in an Audubon green meadow in western New York, photographed merrily by a Brooklyn native who always saw beyond the asphalt, concrete and brick.

Aren’t those reddish-orange spots neat?

U.S. blues, 4 hours north of home Pittsburgh, amidst so much that I enjoyed . . . .

Jeff

This Year 2015

Posted July 5, 2015

Filed under Flowers Loved by Butterflies, Monarch, Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

Oconee National Forest in Central Georgia, the Jamestown Audubon Center reserve in Western New York, and the Allegheny National Forest in Northwestern Pennsylvania were joyous visits for me, new regions, new butterflies and new wildflowers. With 2015 fully in progress, I went to Doak Field in Raccoon Creek State Park last Thursday, July 2nd. As I worked those Southwestern Pennsylvania trails, there were surprises in store. Darners were flying in squadrons in 2014. I met few on July 2nd. Butterflies were many in ’14, I encountered relatively few this time, and didn’t fill a roll of Fuji slide film. Common milkweed are present in good numbers, but with the sun out, little wind blowing, I found no Monarchs and very, very few Swallowtails.

When I rounded the bend on a trail cut through the meadow, where hundreds of Wild Bergamot (pictured here) greeted me in 2014, there are very few to be seen on July 2, 2015.

No, Monica, we don’t get bored in the field, for each year brings its owns mysteries and surprises. The camera lens must be cleaned, for you Never know what’s to be around the next bend.

Jeff