Red-Spotted Purple

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The other butterfly that seems to be doing great in our area of Maryland are the red-spotted purples. They are smaller swallowtails than the most prominent swallowtails in our area – the tiger swallowtails. They can look a little like the dark morph of the tiger swallowtail but they are smaller and a closer look at the markings show they are different. There was a red-spotted purple caterpillar that hatched on the black cherry plant where the Brookside staff had pinned the cecropia moth cocoons back in April. The moths emerged…and the red-spotted purple caterpillar grew, pupated, and emerged as a red-spotted purple. Now – in September, I am seeing lots of these butterflies. They seem to like country roads and gardens. I saw several at Brookside Gardens over the past few weeks.

And at the north tract of the Patuxent Research Refuge….along the road and in the visitor center parking lot.

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I didn’t get out of the car to identify and photograph the butterflies flitting on and over the road to Belmont Manor and Historic Park…but they were the right color and behavior.

It’s great that we have some butterflies that are apparently doing well even if the Monarch butterflies don’t seem as prevalent this year in our area.

Springfield Botanical Garden

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My daughter and I took a break from unpacking into her new home for  a short walk around the Springfield (Missouri) Botanical Gardens. We parked near the area that the Master Gardeners created and maintain. There were a lot of things in bloom…and veggies growing too.

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The morning was heating up and we realized we should have come earlier in the morning for our walk. We made our way through several other garden areas. The Hosta area looked inviting (very shady and probably cooler that much of the garden) but we decided to make a loop and come back sometime when it was cooler.

I knew they had a native butterfly exhibit that I wanted to see. It is in a mesh tent. The butterfly that was new to me was the zebra swallowtail – evidently more common in Missouri than it is in Maryland. Maybe they have more paw paw trees (the host plant for the caterpillar) than we do.

As we walked back to the parking lot (the Botanical Center building was not open during the time we were there), we saw the Monarch Butterfly life cycle sculpture/play area. Very clever. Next time I am in the garden maybe there will be children playing on it.

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Common Buckeye Butterfly

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Last Saturday, I was at Robinson Nature Center about noon enjoying the native plant garden near the front of the nature center. When I noticed a Common Bucky Butterfly enjoying some of the fall flowers.

I took pictures from several perspectives. The colors and markings are very distinctive. It has knobs on the end of the antennae and whitish palpi between its eyes. It’s reported to like flowers with yellow centers…and that it what this individual was enjoying.

The entrance of the nature center has a nice display of fall pumpkins and squash.

I had come to the nature center earlier to participate look at macroinvertebrates in this part of the Middle Patuxent – upstream from the location for the two assessment with high schoolers earlier this week. Two differences: 1) no clams at Robinson….lots of them further down the river and 2) we found a snail…didn’t find any downstream. We found more of everything but that could have been the difference between and adult group and high schoolers….and we had more time to do the project.

2018 Wings of Fancy Ends

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Yesterday was the last day of Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy butterfly exhibit. I volunteered for the last morning shift; taking in zucchini muffins to share with the other volunteers and staff. It started out slow for the butterflies and visitors; the day was cool and very cloudy. Then it warmed up a little and the sun even came out.

I looked back through pictures I’ve taken in the exhibit -ones I’ve liked but not posted for one reason or another. I think if headlines for some of them:

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A Birdwing resting – being harassed by a smaller butterfly

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Three Queens

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Sleeping late (butterflies roosting long past sunrise because it was so cloudy – mostly Longwings)

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Pining to go outdoors (Blue Morpho)

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Living jade (Malachite butterfly)

I put the rest into a slide show…to prolong the joy of the 2018 Wings of Fancy exhibit one more day. I’m already looking forward to next April when the 2019 version will open!

Blue Morpho Butterflies

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One of the most popular butterflies to photograph in Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy  exhibit is the blue morpho. They flutter around within the conservatory. They feed on the rotten fruit.

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The underside of their wings seems drab at first (and it is drab compared to the other side of the wing) but with magnification the pattern and colors are quite interesting. The palpi (the bristly structures that are between the eyes) have an orange stripe although the palpi seem to be easily broken off and there is orange along the outer edge of the wing. The eye spots are at least 3 colors.

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They seem to like to look to the outside through the windows of the conservatory. Their wings are sometimes so battered that one can see the blue color where part of wing has broken away.

They sometimes like to rest on the floor – always a dangerous place for butterflies with people not always looking where they step. Most of the time they are resting with their wings closed.

Then – the serendipity event happens – the blue morpho opens its wings and stays where it is long enough to be photographed! The color is made my physical means rather than pigment…and changes with the incidence of light. Do you see that sometimes the blue looks pink? This is the first time I was able to capture an image of the changeable color of the blue morpho.

Clearwing Butterfly

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Some butterflies do not have scales…or have very few of them. There are a few specimens in Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit and I’m always thrilled to see them. I rarely spot them on my own and most of the time I’m busy with my volunteer job as a ‘flight attendant’ so I can’t take pictures. Recently I was walking around the exhibit – not volunteering – and I had my camera and a tripod. There was a school group visiting the exhibit and they’d spotted a clearwing!

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The butterfly was focused on breakfast of nectar from some white flowers (the proboscis was not rolled up between flowers….the insect was hungry!) so was staying put long enough for pictures.

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The ribs that provide the structure for the wings are more obvious when the wing is clear. In the case of this butterfly they are a metallic copper color. Sometime that color is reflected in the thin membrane that is the wing.

There do appear to be a few scales on this time of clearwing – on the upper edge of the wing…some white and copper color.

Seeing a clearwing is one of the things that makes a walk in the exhibit special.

Thoughts from Belmont

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I’ve spent more time at Belmont this week because of some extra classes held there. Three thoughts: 1) On the road into the park I thought about the pine trees cut a few years ago because they were damaged by pine bark beetles and now the ash trees being marked with yellow tape for removal because of the emerald ash borer. They are big trees along the drive toward the Manor House…will leave some large holes.

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) Looking down the road from the front of the manor house, I thought about the way it slopes down hill for about a mile – I coast all the way down to Rockburn Branch when I leave. It traverses the boundary between the Piedmont and Coastal Plain. Maryland’s highest elevation is in the far west of the state…and it slopes down to the sea through two mountain ranges (Alleghenies and Appalachians) to the Piedmont and then the coastal plain to the sea. Belmont is a place to see one of those transitions. Water in Piedmont streams and rivers babbles along…and moves more slowly once it gets to the coastal plain.

3) There is a butterfly meadow being created near the Carriage House nature center. Right now, it is dirt that has been covered with plastic to kill grass and unwanted plants…ready for planting of milkweed and other plants that provide food for the butterflies and caterpillars. The big sheets of plastic had not blown entirely way in our recent winds but hadn’t stayed spread out as intended either. There were some bright yellow plants in the dirt. On closer inspection they were grass…with the (yellow) xanthophyll pigments lasting longer than the (green) chlorophyll pigments when it tried to grow under the plastic! The grass will be pulled before the meadow plant seeds are sowed. I also noticed a relatively large (and old) shelf function on a dead tree in the brambles behind the butterfly meadow project. There were lots of birds back in that area too…but not easily visible on the cloudy day.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 9, 2017

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

What is Impressionism? Impressionism Art and Impressionism Definition – Maybe your recognized Impressionism….but here is a definition!

United States Map from Over 1000 Million Acres of Forests – based on Landsat data. If you want to look at some maps online – try the Global Forest Change link in the article. I looked up the forest change for my home address (and hence the area immediately around where I live).

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Completed its Eighth Flyby Over Jupiter – This is item is almost a month old now – images are too awesome to not include in the Gleanings this week.

Two NASA Science Planes Are Capturing Some Glorious Images of Antarctica – More images from NASA – this time looking back at our own planet.

Free Technology for Teachers: 6,500 Vintage Travel Photos - Free to Use – Refine the results to find some of your favorite places. I looked with the US collection at Yosemite and Yellowstone. There is an image of “Old Faithful” from 1898.

Infographic: Understanding Our Diverse Brain | The Scientist Magazine® - Surprise! The idea that all cells within and organism sharing an identical genome may be – at best – an oversimplification.

Can Exercise Prevent Knee Osteoarthritis? | Geriatrics | JAMA | The JAMA Network – Increasing age and obesity levels do not totally account for the increase in osteoarthritis! Maybe those other factors mean that it is more preventable that we think.

The National Parks in Winter – Keep warm…and enjoy the view of some special places:

Meet The Magnificently Weird Mola Mola – Cool Green Science – I’ve seen Mola Molas in aquariums….have always thought they were an unlikely fish.

Image of the Day: Butterfly Wing Scents | The Scientist Magazine® - The wings of some male butterflies are not just for flying; they also have special ‘scent’ scales that attract females!

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 25, 2017

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Millions of Free Botanical Illustrations from the Biodiversity Heritage Library – I look at a lot of books digitized by the Biodiversity Heritage Library via Internet Archive – but their Flickr Account is a good way to see images – lots of them. And it isn’t just botanical. There are birds and insects and mammals and people that study them!

Gorging on Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #112, #113, #114 - Three of them!

The Ultimate Guide to the Wild Turkey and The Fascinating Behavior of Wild Turkeys and Tracing the Wild Origins of the Domestic Turkey – Lots of articles about wild turkeys came out before Thanksgiving. These were my favorites.

BBC - Future - How popcorn became a much-loved snack – Learn a little fun history. Who doesn’t like popcorn?

A Short History of the Crosswalk | Smart News | Smithsonian – Another little history of something that is now quite common. Crosswalks didn’t exist until 1951!

Best National Parks – There are a lot of preferences! How many of the 10 ‘most visited’ have you seen. I’ve been to 7 of them. I’ve only been to 1 of the ‘least visited.’

Urban Refuge: How Cities Can Help Rebuild Declining Bee Populations - Yale E360 – Some examples of how urban gardens impact bee populations; it turns out they are measurably positive! 13% of New York State’s bees were found in New York City community gardens.

Paper Engineer Creates Magnificent Pop-Up Cards – Beautiful and fun to watch opening (i.e. the video).

Stunning 100-Megapixel Moon Photograph Created from NASA Images – From the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter…my daughter helped do the initial image calibration on LRO bak in 2009

See a Brilliant Blue Butterfly Take Flight for the First Time – A video of a blue morpho butterfly emerging from its chrysalis and tumbling to its first flight (it may take time to start…but it’s worth the wait!

Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge

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The second day of the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, we did not have any formal field trips scheduled. It was cool and cloudy – not a good day for butterflies, so we shifted our plans back to a focus on birds and headed for the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.Some of the first things we saw on our hike was insects – still with the cold: two dragonflies

Two caterpillars, and

A queen butterfly…not fluttering about.

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I was pleased to see a land snail on one of the small trees. We’d seen a lot of shells on the ground (i.e. dead) at both Las Estrellas and Rancho Lomitas. We were told that sometimes roadrunners get hungry enough to crack the shells against a rock to get to the tasty morsel inside.

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Ball Moss is something I had never seen. It is like Spanish Moss – also abundant on trees in the refuge.

Then we saw some duck: Northern Shovelers and Blue winged teal.

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A group of chachalaca were in the trees beside the trail. It was hard to get pictures through the foliage and branches…we’d get better pictures on another day.

As we walked across an empty parking lot, we spotted a kiskadee on an electrical line

And then a flash of orange in the trees – an Altamira Oriole was on the move. It eventually made it way to the electrical pole as well.

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The refuge has a swinging bridge through tree tops. On the day we were there, the birds were hunkered down but it was still work the climb and the look down into foliage.

At a bird blind, I finally got some good pictures of the green jay.

We made our way back to the visitor center and had a snack on our way to nearby Estero Llano State Park (topic of tomorrow's post). In this area of Texas there are a series of state and federal lands that make a wild life corridor…more meaningful than each standalone park or refuge.

Gulf Fritillary in a Carrolton Garden

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I noticed a flash of orange and black in my parents’ garden and grabbed my camera hoping to photograph a migrating Monarch butterfly. But it was a different butterfly – a Gulf Fritillary. My first attempt to photograph it turned into an ‘art’ photograph with butterfly and flowers glowing against the fence slats.

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Then the butterfly moved to a better position and worked it ways around the flower…an easy target for my camera.

It’s very easy to be enamored with all butterflies.

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge – Part 2

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Continuing the sightings at Hagerman…

We saw several Great Blue Herons (and there were probably more about than we happened to see. One of them was startled my something and I snapped a picture as it took off with its neck still straight out rather than folded into the tight S for longer distance flying.

There was an Osprey eyeing our cars from the top of the road we were on – the top of a dike between two ponds. My sister contorted herself through the sunroof to take pictures! I had a better vantage point from the backseat comfortably seated although I did catch the edge of the opening in one of the pictures. The osprey migrate through this area.

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We saw a blob of white out in the lake and watched it as we got closer. It became two white blobs. Then we were close enough to see what it was: two American White Pelicans. They are well known for migrating through Hagerman. I used my zoom to get some pictures of the one that was awake and preening.

Somehow I decided that most of the ducks were mallards and too far away to photograph on the cloudy day but the one picture I took of a duck and looked at on a larger screen when I got home turned to be a Northern Pintail! I should have looked more closely at the ducks…but I would have needed to take a spotting scope and spend more time; I didn’t have either this trip. This is a wintering area for pintails.

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Heading back to the visitor center – we saw two Turkey Vultures in a field. These birds breed in the area but may not stay for the winter. They are stay year-round in Maryland so I was surprised to see the range map for them showing that they are summer residents only in North Texas.

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Back at the Visitor Center, we spent some time walking around the butterfly garden and I was surprised at how many butterflies were around. I took two pictures of Sulphur butterflies and discovered when I got home that they might be two different kinds: Cloudless Sulphur

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Our visit to Hagerman was a great way to spend 2 hours on fall morning. Next time, I’ll allow myself even more time and do some hiking along with the auto tour.

Zooming – September 2017

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I spent a lot of time outdoors this month; it’s fall and the weather has been near perfect. The moon was visible in the morning of one of the clear days and I took pictures through frames of leaves. This one is my favorite.

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In the first half of the month the butterfly exhibit at Brookside Gardens was still open and I have lots of zoomed pictures for that but picked two of the blue morpho for this post. Toward the end it was hard to find one with wings that were not battered and palpi intact. These two are in reasonable shape.

Then there were butterflies out in the gardens. The Mexican sunflowers and cone flowers were popular. Do you see the tree skippers (butterflies) on the yellow cone flowers? Click on the image to get a larger view.

The streams are beginning to be colorful with newly fallen leaves. The macroinvertebrates we search for to assess stream quality love matted, rotting leaves! I like the zoom on my camera that helps me get pictures without putting on my tall boots and wading into the river.

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A large silver maple was cut down this month at Mt. Pleasant (Howard County Conservancy) and I working to count the rings and create material we could use with hikes we do for elementary school children. The saw marks were so deep that it had to be sanded before we count the rings…but insect damage was evident. More on this project as it progresses…

Of course, there are plants that area always a favorite – a graceful curve of a leave with water droplets, a flower turned to face the sun, a rose on a rainy day, a beechnut husk (the goody already eaten by a squirrel), birds hunting the bounty of seeds, and a tangle of succulent.