Are You Able To ID This Moth?

Posted August 13, 2019

Filed under Ft Federica Saint Simons Island, GA, Other Insects

Unidentified Moth photographed by Jeff Zablow at Fort Federica, Saint Simons Island, GA

We spotted this moth on a mostly sunny morning at Ft. Federica, on St. Simons Island, on the Georgia coast. Me? I can recognize almost all butterflies, but moths, I don’t know most of them.

We spent almost a week in a vacation house in Townsend, Georgia. Most of our field work was was done at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, about 25 minutes from our beautiful rental home. That one day we drove to Ft. Federica, in part to see Virginia’s childhood home of St. Simons Island. I’d ask her where the best place to find and shoot butterflies on the island, and Virginia said that’d be this hundreds of years old English fort, Ft. Federica.

Id’ing moths is a very popular pursuit now, so I look forward to several of you helping us name this fascinating moth.

Jeff

Blackwater Pinks

Posted May 2, 2019

Filed under Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, MD, Native Orchids, Native Plants and Flowers, Wildflowers

Pink Lady's Slipper wildflower, photographed by Jeff Zablow at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, MD

I was seeking butterflies, she was more interested in revisiting a spot that annually yielded Pink Lady Slipper Orchids. It was a mostly cloudy morning there, at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, near Madison, Maryland.

Yes, I did once visit the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem and I visited the Vatican and its breathtaking Sistine Chapel.

Standing there, gaping at these native (American) orchids, evokes the same kind of Awe,

Three bunched Pink Lady Slipper Orchids, elegance, delicate beauty and improbable pluck, in the shady recesses of a wild, Wildlife Refuge. Speaking in whispers, for G-d is close by.

Jeff