How do you miss something like that?

And I would have missed it, were it not for the burst of noise that seemed to come from directly beneath my left foot.

Got it?

Right there.

There.

A whirr, a brief glimpse of small brown bird, and a sudden disappearance, gotta be a Timberdoodle, aka, the American Woodcock (Scolopax minor).

She makes “grring” noises—like a perturbed porcupine—from very close by. I Need to leave quickly, but where to put my big feet?

Gotta move very, very carefully. Don’t want to scramble any eggs or, heavens forfend, squish a chick.

Okay, it’s a nest. Two eggs? One quick photo and I’m gone.

Woodcock nest, three eggs.

Whoops, three eggs.

A couple of days later I snuck back and used a telephoto for the bird on the nest. The sun went behind a cloud as I approached.

Woodcock on nest

I took a low-angle shot.  As I stood up to leave, the sun broke through the clouds. The effect of the dappling of sun and shade was magic. Looking down on her back, I zoomed in for a nice tight portrait.

Sun-dappled Woodcock in a sun-dappled woods.

I got a heads up from a friend that Timberdoodle incubation is pretty predictable. I did a little research and found a terrific write-up from the Ruffed Grouse Society.

“Although in the more southern areas, woodcock no doubt at times nest earlier, they usually nest from early March into June. A typical timberdoodle nest is a slight depression on the ground among some dead leaves. A female lays one egg a day until she completes the normal clutch of four. The eggs, which are oval, have a slight gloss to them and may vary from a pinkish buff to cinnamon with brown blotches and darker speckling. The incubation process takes 19 to 22 days.”

So, twenty days later, what should I do? Should I revisit the nest and hope to get a photo of the chicks?

Nahh.

Someday, I will run into some and grab the shot, but not this year. Mama Woodcock will have enough problems bringing off her brood without me wandering around the nursery.  Besides, Steve Wilson over at Blue Jay Barrens already has a great article on Woodcock chicks.

Maybe I’ll see the young’uns next year, when they’re all grown up fat and sassy.

American Woodcock

Or maybe I’ll just get a pair of these (artwork by the inimitable Julie Zickefoose):

I went north into the mountains.

Fair warning: some of this is going to get photo-wonky.

It was a foggy morning; more accurately, the ceiling was below the tops of the mountains. The valleys were clear,

Big Valley as seen from the side of the ridge.

but the ridgetops were not.

Driving through the clouds

It was the kind of even light that real photographers like.

I hate it.

I generally chase things that move—a lot—and I use a big chunk of glass to take my pictures. For the non-photographic folks out there, big chunks of glass need a lot of light or they need to be mounted on a tripod. Tripods are great—unless you’re chasing things that move a lot.

So today was a day for rocks; rocks don’t often move.

Mountaintop with Pinxter Azalea (Rhododendron periclymenoides)

And flowers. I generally take flower shots with a long macro on a tripod.

It is almost impossible for me not to stop and take a picture of Yellow Lady’s Slippers (Cypripedium parviflorum).

Yellow Lady’s Slipper

Now, plants don’t move, but the slightest breeze will make most wildflowers dance around like a squirrel’s tail in a windstorm.

A breeze began about fifteen minutes after I stopped the car.

Happily, Showy Orchis (Galearis spectabilis) is low and stout and fairly unaffected by the wind.

Showy Orchis

The breeze became a wind within ten minutes, so I put away the big glass and took off on a hike with my little camera (Canon PowerShot SX50 HS). I’m still learning this camera; on this trip, I learned a lot.

First off, the macro is surprisingly good. Resist the temptation to zoom. Pull the lens back to wide angle, turn on the live display, then extend your arm and use the resistance of the strap against your neck to steady the camera. Works like a charm.

This little bird-dropping is actually a moth (probably Schlaeger’s Fruitworm Moth, Antaeotricha schlaegeri).

Bird-dropping moth

I was happily surprised by the quality of these images, and I am pretty certain that, had I tried harder to hold them steady, I could have improved on these quite a bit. I really didn’t expect this to work.

Another interesting thing, insects will tolerate a camera at arm’s length coming far closer than they will a camera with a face behind it.

Digger bee

These digger bees were busily building burrows and patrolling the forest floor along the trail.

Digger bee–digging

A couple of years ago, the incomparable Bill Bower published an article on digger bees (he calls them “mining bees,” another generic term for the same bunch of bees) in the Williamsport Gazette.  It’s a great read by one of our finest outdoor writers.

If I could ID these bees without whacking one of them, I might try. Many of these digger bees “are generalist bees visiting many different plants for pollen and nectar.” However,

“some species have very narrow host-plant preferences. These specialist bees are referred to as oligolectic. Approximately 20% of the species in the northern portions of the United States restrict their pollen collecting to just a few closely related plant species. For example, many species of Colletes are restricted to plants in the family Compositae, such as Heterotheca, Aster, and Solidago.”

I would love to say that I had seen an oligolectic bee. Wouldn’t that impress my friends and acquaintances?

**The non-photographers might as well go on and read something else at this point. The rest of this is “how I shot this amazing picture” quasi-technical stuff.

My little Canon also did a very nice job on some wildflowers. It needs less light, so I was able to shoot this Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum) at an ISO of 320 and, because the image stabilization is quite good, I shot hand-held at 1/15 sec during a lull in the wind.

Wild Geranium, aka Cranesbill

I shot these Pink Lady’s Slippers (Cypripedium acaule) at an ISO of 800 at 1/50 sec. The aperture is f 5.0—yet look at the depth of field. At that aperture on my DSLR at this distance, I would not have acceptable focus from front to back of an individual bloom.

Pink Lady’s Slippers

There was a nice False Solomon Seal (Polygonatum racemosa) right next to the car, so I thought that I would experiment a little with high ISOs on my DSLR. The flower was prancing about in the breeze, so I used flash to stop the movement.

False Solomon’s Seal, shot with flash

That worked at 1/180 sec., f 5.6, ISO 400, but I don’t like the color rendition (too orange), and I hate that unnatural shadow. I can fix the color in post-processing (I haven’t)—can’t do a thing about the shadow.

So, I shot it without flash at 1/125 sec., f 5.6, ISO 1600. and it’s okay. First, I set a custom white balance. Canon’s auto white balance (AWB) is fantastic. The only place it falls short, in my experience, is under shade in a very green woods.

False Solomon’s Seal, natural light

That’s better. Yes the detail is somewhat less, but the colors are true, and there is no shadow. Certainly good enough for the web.

I wish I had thought to line the blossom up with that nice dark rock in the background though—sigh.

“the time of the singing of birds is come”

Indeed, it has.

Yellow Warbler

The quote comes from the second chapter of what I consider to be the loveliest and most lyrical of all the books of sacred scripture: The Song of Solomon, or The Song of Songs. This particular wording comes from the King James Bible.

It is mid-May, and the mountains are full of singing birds, particularly warblers.

Black-throated Blue Warbler

They are sending a message, and they prefer to send it from high in the trees so it may carry afar: “This is my territory; you other gentlemen need to stay on outta here. Mine, mine, mine. (Ladies always welcome.)”

Golden-winged Warbler

Blue-winged Warbler

And because they are so high up, so far away, my 100-400mm zoom just hasn’t got enough zoom. So the images are shot at high ISOs (hence the grain) and then massively cropped.

Redstart

But they will serve.

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Yellow-breasted Chat

“the time of the singing of birds is come”

The parson gets it.

Now, at this point, many of you are wondering about the title–turtle’s don’t really have voices, do they?.

Well, the full quote from the Song of Solomon is:

“The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”

The turtle referred to is the Turtle Dove (Streptopelia turtur), which is native in Europe and the Middle East…

or if you are a Pogo fan, it’s Churchy la Femme, incomparable songster of the Okefenokee.

There are only about thirteen species of turtle in Pennsylvania, maybe nine of those are found in the Central Ridge and Valley.  Of these, perhaps the hardest to spot is the Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata). There is really nothing particularly striking about Spotted Turtles, although they are, as turtles go, colorful creatures. They tend to be small–my Peterson Guide lists the record as 5 inches–and they are seldom seen, which may have as much to do with a very short active period as with actual rarity. They have a Pennsylvania State ranking of S3 (Vulnerable), although they are listed as Globally secure (G5).

Spotted Turtle

I have seen precisely four Spotted Turtles in my entire life, all here in Central Pennsylvania.  

The first was in a small drainage stream in a lowland forest one April about ten years ago. I didn’t know what I was looking at for certain. I didn’t have a camera, and I didn’t think it was much of anything special.

I saw the second one seven years ago, on the 6^th of May 2006, sunning on an emergent log in a vernal pool.

Spotted Turtle in vernal pool.

Two years ago, on the 14^th of April 2013, I found another one, also sunning on an emergent log in a different vernal pool some thirty miles away.

Spotted Turtle in vernal pool.

I have gone back to the spot where I saw the first one many times over the last ten springs. This year, on the 8^th of April, I finally found one—and this time I had my camera.

Spotted Turtle

Spotted Turtles seem to prefer it a little cool.  On warmer days, they tend to limit their activity to the mornings. In Pennsylvania, they emerge from hibernation early in the spring, as early as March, and by early summer, they have gone to ground, spending the summer buried under the leaf litter of the surrounding forest.)

In the fall they move to hibernation points in muskrat dens and in the mud at the bottom of flowing streams. They will emerge the next spring once the water temperature reaches the low 40s.

]]> http://www.northoftheridge.com/2013/04/spotted-turtle/feed/ 0 http://www.northoftheridge.com/2013/02/cherish-the-ladies/ http://www.northoftheridge.com/2013/02/cherish-the-ladies/#comments Mon, 04 Feb 2013 01:20:25 +0000 J.B. Wheatley http://www.northoftheridge.com/?p=2086 [Continued]]]> Long ago I served in Hawai’i. When I left the islands, I bought a wildlife painting to commemorate my tour. The painting shows an Old World flycatcher named the ‘Elepaio (Chasiempis sandwichensis)—nifty little bird—which the Hawaiians considered to be the guardian spirit of canoe makers. Nearby, there is a butterfly, one of only two native butterfly species in the islands.

Elepaio by Charles C. Thompson © Hawaii Museum of Natural History

The butterfly is a Lady.

Detail of butterfly from Elepaio by Charles C. Thompson © Hawaii Museum of Natural History

To be exact, it is the Kameama (Vanessa tameamea), named after Hawai’i's greatest king.

The butterflies known as Ladies belong to the genus Vanessa. We have a total of three species of Vanessa in Pennsylvania.

Of these three, one is the unmistakable Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta).  There is nothing around here that comes close to this black butterfly with the bold red slash.

Red Admiral (Vanessa atatlanta)

And where the topside is bold, the underside is elegant and understated.

Red Admiral (Vanessa atatlanta), underwing.

Red Admirals can be explosive breeders, and they also migrate northward as summer progresses. Some years they arrive by the thousands.

We also have both the American Lady (V. virginiensis) and the Painted Lady (V. cardui).

American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis)

I see the American Ladies first. I have records as early as 19 April and as late as 16 July.

American Lady caterpillars are picky eaters. They limit themselves to the little woolly-white members of the Composite family. Last August the 8^th, I came across a stand of Pearly Everlasting (Anaphilis margaritacea) on the side of a forestry road in the Bald Eagle State Forest. One plant seemed to be attached to its neighbor.

Pearly Everlasting (Anaphilis margaritacea)

And there was a surprise inside.

American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis) caterpillar

See that little brown and black nuggy thing below the caterpillar? Right there—see it?

See the brownish nuggy thing?

Right…here:

Frass!

That’s frass, also known as insect poop. Frass is one of my favorite words. It’s German originally, in which language it is the past tense of the verb to eat (fressen), and if you think about it, that’s pretty much appropriate—it has been eaten. Always looking for a chance to work frass into a story.

The Painted Lady tends to show up a little later; my records go from 15 June to 1 August, but they are liable to show up just about anywhere; they are a commodity.

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui)

Painted Lady caterpillars aren’t finicky eaters, which makes them ideal to fill those “Butterflies in the Classroom Kits” that are sold to schools. Despite this distribution, I have never seen a Painted Lady caterpillar in the wild.

Both Ladies avoid the cold; they cannot overwinter here. They migrate southward in the fall, returning eventually in the spring. Like many butterflies, the insects that return in the spring are most likely the kids, or even grandkids, of the ones that flew south in the fall.

Once here, they will produce at least two or three generation before cold weather forces them back south.

The two Ladies are very similar. From the topside, look for a tiny white dot on the wing of the American Lady.

American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis). Note the tiny white dot in the first large rectangular orange cell aft of the black part of the forewing.

American Lady on the left–note white dot. Painted Lady on the right.

From underneath, the American Lady has two big eyes on the hindwing.

American Ladies have big eyes.

The Painted Lady has four medium eyes.

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), underwing with four eyespots.

On a final, more musical note, I should explain that Cherish the Ladies is the name of a terrific Celtic musical group, whom you may listen to here.

Green Darners mating, 7 April, 2009

I also pick up one or two Common Whitetails (Plathemis lydia) basking along the ridge tops in April.

Common Whitetail, I believe this is a newly emerged male.

So, a brown dragonfly on a ridgetop on April 25th was a pretty easy ID: Common Whitetail. I only took  photos to establish a first of the year date.

Then I downloaded the photos.

This is not a Common Whitetail

That is not a Common Whitetail.

Check out those orange spots along the abdomen—obviously some kind of Baskettail (Epitheca spp.), but which one? This was about a month early for Baskettails, my earliest record is 24 May, but it had to be, just look at the orange spots.

I have a lot of shots of Baskettail spp.

Baskettail (Epitheca spp.). Note the row of orange spots.

Baskettails are hard to tell apart, but this one had a whitish patch on the shoulder that I thought might be diagnostic, perhaps something limited to newly emerged specimens, and it might allow an expert to make an ID.

I sent my photos off to some experts, and the mystery was solved.

Blue Corporal (Ladona deplanata)

It was not a Baskettail, not the right genus at all, not even the right family. I was right about one thing; those white marks on the shoulders were diagnostic, diagnostic of a Blue Corporal (Ladona deplanata).

In my defense, it’s not like it was a bright blue, unmistakable male. Besides, she shouldn’t have been there. According to every reference I had, Blue Corporals were limited to the very eastern part of the State.  The map at Odonata Central showed two records from Bob Moul in Adams County, one from 26 April 2005, the other from 30 May 2008.  Adams County is a more central part of the State, but far south of the Ridge and Valley.

So how did she get on top of this ridge top in the middle of the mountains? Must be a stray.

On 18 May I took a photo of my first Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis) of the year, a male,  at the outflow of Lake Holman.

Then I downloaded the photos.

This is not an Eastern Pondhawk

That is not a male Eastern Pondhawk.

This is a male Eastern Pondhawk.

Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis), male. Note the white tip of the abdomen.

Eastern Pondhawk males look quite a bit different, particularly those back-up lights, the bright, white terminal appendages.

Here’s a female, just because I have a good shot: stunning creature.

Eastern Pondhawk, female (Erythemis simplicicollis)

So, I got it wrong–again.

In my defense…

Well, that’s pretty indefensible. It was a bright blue, unmistakable male.  I simply bonked the ID. I took a cursory glance at best, and I just wasn’t paying attention.

North of the Ridge’s Critter of the Year for 2012: the Blue Corporal.

So now we have a male to go with our female. Another stray? That seems unlikely. A range expansion?

Maybe.

We tend to “see” what we expect to see, even when it isn’t there. We also have an innate prejudice against seeing that which is not supposed to be there.

Have we collectively just missed the Blue Corporals, dragonflying about before most of us are out and looking and showing up where we are told they do not live,  easily dismissed with a cursory glance?

Maybe next spring will point toward an answer. At any rate, I hope to be out and looking come April, and this year, I will not be so easily fooled (I hope).

Ruddy Duck, note beginnings of rusty plumage.

When Superstorm Sandy blew up the coast at the end of October, it dropped three Ruddy Ducks on a nearby lake. Two were females; the other was a male, not in breeding plumage. They hung around for most of November and half of December, but they have since departed, probably for the estuaries and bays of Maryland and the Carolinas—maybe for the Caribbean.

They may return next spring. Ruddy Ducks often drop in April and the first couple of weeks of May en route to their breeding grounds in the mid-continental prairie potholes. The males in full breeding plumage are quite natty, ruddy—really.

Male Ruddy Duck, loafing.

So what about that scientific name? The Oxyura (stiff-tailed) part is easy to understand, if not to translate. But, jamaicensis? of Jamaica? Why and wherefore?

The story begins with the old doctor from Småland, Carl Nilsson Linnæus, he who revolutionized how we describe the natural world. His approach—binomial nomenclature—was simple, though not original.

His book, the Systema Naturæ, was a big hit; and he released updated versions—twelve in all—between 1735 and 1768.

Linnæus’ Systema Naturæ

After his death, the thirteenth, and last, edition was published by a German doctor, Johann Friedrich Gmelin between 1788 and 1793.

It is Gmelin who introduces us to the Ruddy Duck—but he doesn’t call it a Ruddy Duck.

Ruddy Duck female

He calls it Anas Jamaicensis—which roughly translates as the Duck of Jamaica.

Well it’s obviously a duck, but why Jamaica? The simple answer is that Jamaica is where the specimen came from.

There were two great naturalists, both physicians, who visited Jamaica in the 18^th Century and returned to Europe just brimming with botanical, zoological, and anthropological news: Patrick Brown and Sir Hans Sloane.

Dr. Patrick Browne came to Jamaica in 1746 and busied himself with producing a study of the place, The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica, published in 1756. If Browne had described the duck in question, it probably would have shown up in Linnæus’ twelfth edition of Systema Naturæ as published in 1768.

Then there is Sloane. In his day, Sir Hans Sloane was one of England’s most influential doctors and naturalists.

Doctor Sloane personally administered the smallpox vaccine to the English royal family; he also brought back a recipe for a native beverage brewed from the cacao bean. Sloane added milk—an idea that he passed on to a fellow named Cadbury.

Truly, a great man.

Sloane lived to be 93, and over that span, he amassed a huge collection of specimens sent from Jamaica and elsewhere, and he bought and incorporated the collections of others. When he finally died in 1753, he bequeathed this agglomeration to the city of London (for £20,000 payable to his daughters), and it became the nucleus of the British Natural History Museum.

Again, had Sloane directly been the source of the description of the duck, it probably would have been included in Linnæus’ twelfth edition (1768). It wasn’t.

Which brings us to yet another physician, Dr. John Latham, who, in 1785, published his General Synopsis of Birds. In the General Synopsis, Latham described, in English, all of the various birds he found in collections throughout England—primarily Hans Sloane’s collection.

Latham described our duck thusly:

Size of the Buffel-headed Duck…general colour of the upper mandible blue…top of the head…black…chin and throat white, mixed with blackish spots…neck is brown…lower part all around, breast, and belly, barred dusky and deep ferruginous…back and scapulars brown…wings and tail plain dusky brown.”

Jamaican Shovellers

He named it the Jamaican Shoveller, but he did not give it a scientific name—thus, he gets no credit for naming the bird. Poor fellow, he figured it out eventually, and in 1790 he published an Index Ornithologicus with binomial Latin-form names, but he was too late. Gmelin had named the birds two years before; the honors went to Gmelin.

So, here’s what I think happened:

• The duck was shot in Jamaica, labeled as such, and ended up, unidentified, in Sloane’s extensive collection.
• Sloane dies (1753); his collection becomes the British Museum of Natural History.
• Linnæus publishes the 12^th edition—sans duck—of Systema Naturæ  (1768), then dies ignorant of Ruddy Ducks (1788).
• Latham comes along and describes the bird in English in his General Synopsis (1785).
• Gmelin reads Latham’s description, names it in Latin in the 13^th edition of Systema Naturæ (1788-93), and—without ever leaving his office at the University of Göttingen—takes credit for a new species, which he has never even seen.

As to the common name, I think the honors go to Alexander Wilson. In his American Ornithology Wilson described a specimen in Peale’s Museum and called it a Ruddy Duck (Anas rubidus, (reddish duck—makes a lot of sense), declared it to be rare, and declared that it was not the same species as Latham’s Jamaican Shoveller.

Alexander Wilson’s Ruddy Duck

The distinction did not last long. Wilson died in 1813. His American Ornithology was published posthumously by Wilson’s friend and fellow ornithologist George Ord in 1829.  In a footnote, Mr. Ord contradicted his dead friend’s appraisal that the Ruddy Duck was not the same as the Jamaican Shoveller.

The year dies, but it passeth in glory.

South ridge flank, late afternoon, autumn.

Few butterflies remain—mostly Cabbage Whites, various Sulphurs, and the ubiquitous Pearl Crescents (Pieris rapae, Colias spp. and Phyciodes tharos, respectively). Most of them are tattered and worn.

Last Red-spotted Purple of 2012, rather down at the heel.

Still, I find fresh Commas (Polygonia comma) and Mourning Cloaks (Nymphalis antiope), which will overwinter in some crevice—emerging from time to time in those near-sixty degree days that pop up in February, or even January—they will be the first butterflies I see in the spring.

The Eastern Comma will overwinter. This is the paler winter form.

Mourning Cloaks also overwinter.

To my surprise, there was still an American Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) out and about on 22 October.

American Copper

I checked with the folks who keep records for such things, the late flight record for American Coppers in Pennsylvania is 24 October, so my name does not go into the record book.

One of our latest fliers is the Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia). They cannot survive our winters as eggs or larvae, and these adults will simply perish in the cold. Every summer our local population is re-stocked with migrants from the south.

A Common Buckeye at the tattered end of a hard life.

Speaking of migrants, there are still a few stragglers among the Monarch (Danaus plexxipus) throng that began streaming south along our ridgetops last month, heading more than 2,000 miles south to overwinter in the Oyamel Fir groves of Mexico. The most recent one I found 22 October, a female that had a decidedly purplish cast about her. I have never seen a Monarch quite that color.

Monarch, I have never seen one with this purplish coloration. Not a trick of the light.

Dragonflies pretty much disappeared with our first frost, although I did see one Meadowhawk (Sympetrum spp.) in mid-October. This is hardly a record, as I once found what acted like an old married couple of Meadowhawks warming themselves on a bit of riprap on the 29^th of November.

Meadowhawk pair sunning, 29 November 2009.

The flowers of autum are pretty much gone, mostly various Asters (Symphotrichum spp.),

An Aster, I think it is Purple-stemmed Aster (Symphyotrichum puniceum)

although a few Goldenrod (Solidago spp.) remain in sheltered spots. 

Goldenrod, probably Late Goldenrod (Solidago gigantea)

While there were a number of mushrooms after the rains earlier in the month, there are far fewer as October ends.

Dryad’s Saddle (Polyporus squamosus), the black tips, I believe, were “burned” by frost

But the greatest shining transient glory of all is the autumn leaves.

The red and yellow of a lone Sweet Gum,

Sweetgum

the golden spires of the Hickories,

Hickories are the most golden of all.

the bright lemon of the Beech,

Beech in autumn yellow

and of course, the resplendent Ruby Surprise.

Poison Ivy has beautiful fall foliage–it’s still itchy though.

“A spirit haunts the year’s last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers.”

Tennyson, The Dying Year

But I digress.

Apparently Variegated Fritillaries (Euptoieta claudia) are some of the most flagrant delicto-ers out there. If you search the internet for Variegated Fritillary courtship, you will be rewarded with a wealth of photos and videos.

They are not shy, which is an odd thing since Euptoieta supposedly means easily scared. What that says about Claudia, I don’t know.

This is a female Variegated Fritillary nectaring at a Knapweed, minding her own business.

Female Variegated Fritillary

She is soon joined by a male, who is also intent on minding her business.

The lady objects.

Note her posture with the abdomen raised. I did not know if that was a “come hither” signal, or a “get lost” signal. Neither did the male butterfly it would seem. Still that weird green monkey-faced bit at the tip of her abdomen didn’t seem alluring—but I’m no butterfly. I found a terrific site on the internet called simply “learn about Butterflies” by a gentleman in the United Kingdom named Adrian Hoskins. In his description of the Orange Tip (Anthocharis cardamines), he has a great photo of a female “raising her abdomen as a rejection signal.”

So, that means “get lost.”

The male never got the memo.

Maybe if he sneaks up from behind.

Sneak.

Sneak–careful with that antenna…

Sneak…almost there…

Boom! Rejected!

Frigidity beam at 3 o’clock low. Break left, break left, climb, climb, climb.

Check out her face. Pardon my anthropomorphism, but doesn’t that face just say “Jerk”?

He does not take the hint.

Well, if at first you don’t succeed…

Find a different way to make a fool of yourself.

Immediately hereafter, she fled for parts unknown with her clueless paramour in hot pursuit.

Poor lass.

To abuse the wisdom of that great American philosopher, Dolly Rebecca Parton:

“Love is like a butterfly” an unrequited pesky guy. A multi-colored fool in love is still a stupid thing.

Shortly thereafter, I turned a corner, literally turned a corner, into a sunny field and, at the nadir of my poor, battered self-esteem, I came across an affirming moment—oh, returned is the warm light of certitude, salved is my poor bruised ego. Confidence flows through my soul as a river of fire.

At last, I know what the heck I’m looking at.

There is a multitude of yellow butterflies along the trail. They are Sulphurs—of which nine are possible in the state—and they all look very much alike.

Ha! But I know this one; I just spent time identifying one up in Huntingdon County.  It is smaller than the rest, and it has two distinctive little black dots near the base of the hind wing underneath.

It is a Little Yellow (Polistes lisa), the first one that I have seen in Perry County.

Little Yellow (Pyrisitia lisa)

This sighting is followed by a nice fresh Viceroy (Limenitis archippus). These are regular here in and around Alder thickets in swampy areas.

Viceroy (Limenitis archippus)

Next up is the Viceroy’s close cousin, a nice bright Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis). These are extremely common this time of year. In fact, the roads are littered with their shattered corpses. This one is sitting in poor light, and I had to concentrate on my steady hold factors to get the shot in focus at 1/125 sec. I shot ten shots; only this one was close to being in focus.

Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis)

Here is a Hackberry Emperor. Check out those classy white antenna tips.

Hackberry Emperor (Asterocampa celtis)

At that same spot, I also found a very newly emerged Meadow Fritillary. I was recently told that warm-weather individuals show a different pattern and coloration on the underside of the wing, and this photo backs that up. In my experience, there is usually far less contrast to the details of the pattern.

Meadow Fritillary (Boloria bellona)

Not a bad day after all.