Posts in Category: butterflies and insects
Great Spangled Fritillary
Great Spangled Fritillary, Emmon’s Preserve, Kennebunkport, Maine — Here is a creature to inspire dreams…in this photo it looks like a fantastically winged horse…actually the Great Spangled Fritillary (great name!) is one of the larger butterflies in New England and always a treat to see. There don’t seem to be as many this year, even at Emmon’s Preserve where they are generally common in August. There also does not seem to be as much Joe Pie Weed…which seems to be a favored feeding plant for the Fritillaries. I found this plant and butterfly in the ditch along the hay field just as you emerge from the woods at Emmon’s. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Bee Fly on Blazing Star
There are two things of interest in this photo. Of course, the Northern Blazing Star…an endangered plant that grows abundantly on the Kennebunk Plains. This is a very early flower…the massed bloom will not happen until mid August…but there are generally a few plants in favored spots on the plains that bloom early. It is one of my favorite flowers and I wait patiently for it each year. The Nature Conservancy did a prescribed burn on the Day Brook side of the plains last September, and, as Blazing Star is “fire dependent”, I expect a really good bloom this year. The signs are shaping up. There are abundant plants and a few early bloomers. Should be good. The other thing of interest is the bug. It is, I was able to determine after some internet searches and a couple of AI powered identification apps, one of the Bee Flys…all of which have that long proboscis for drilling down for nectar. They are Bee Flies not only because they somewhat resemble bees, but because they are bee predators…bee parasites…laying their eggs in active ground bee nests, one egg per nest, where they hatch and the larva eats both the bee’s stored food and the bee larva themselves. The things you can learn on the internet! Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Swallowtail dreaming…
I was headed out on my bike with my camera when I saw this very tattered Swallowtail butterfly working the Day Lilies by our driveway. I managed a few shots before it was off into the trees across the road. It never really posed for me, but I like this shot for its color, composition, and for the dreamy quality. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Time for Tiger Swallowtails
There is a poem:
The Tiger Swallowtail, drunk on
Marigold nectar, staggered from
flower to flower, letting me take
its picture in its many poses,
recording the accidents of posture
as it probed the blossoms, one
after another. Full wings, both
front and back, and the furry tiger
body, as it came and went, just
at eye-level in the long plastic
planters on the rail of the deck.
What could be finer on a sunny
July afternoon…with the cool
breeze attempting, again and
again, to lift it. It few off, oh
several times, and I waited in
front of the open deck door, for
it to circle back and find fresh
flowers…and it did…giving me
all the Tiger Swallowtail I need.
We get two Tiger Swallowtails here in Southern Maine: The Canadian and the Eastern…and since they overlap, hybrids are always possible, and apparently are becoming more frequent…or at least more frequently observed. Though I have tried, I can not say for sure which one this is. This time of year Eastern is more likely, and it is large and yellow enough to be one…but this butterfly shows at least some of the marks of a Canadian. It is certainly “fresh”…unlike most of the swallowtails I photographed last month, which were all well worn and ragged around the edges. I don’t think I saw a single one with both tails intact. Anyway. I always enjoy Tiger Swallowtails, the biggest and brightest of our New England butterflies. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. On the first shot I used Program Shift to increase depth of field slightly. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos. These are both pretty much full frame, just cropped a bit for composition.
Another immigrant: Essex Skipper
Essex Skipper (European Skipper), Forever Wild Preserve, Kennebunk, Maine, USA — I am apparently more of a chauvinist than I am aware of…whenever I look up a species that I have photographed and find that it is a non-native species, I am slightly disappointed. This is such a case. I photographed this little skipper on the trail at the Forever Wild Preserve, and had to look it up. It is, according to the Leps artificial intelligence engine, and subsequent research, the Essex Skipper. The Essex Skipper, sometimes called the European Skipper here, was accidentally introduced in Ontario, Canada in 1910, and is now the most common skipper in New England. I have to remind myself that I am a child of immigrants myself before I am ready to make room for the Essex Sipper in the American pantheon…but then I guess that is just human nature. All God’s creatures, great and small. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Leps in the Blazing Star
I mentioned how impressed I was with the numbers of insects using the endangered Northern Blazing Star boom on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area here in southern Maine this week. Here are 4 leps (to add to the White-lined Sphinx Moth posted earlier). Painted Lady, Common Wood-nymph, Monarch, and what I think is a Wandering Gem moth. Something very Gem like anyway. The moth was tiny…it just covered the tip of my finger. Sony RX10iv at 600 and 1200mm equivalent (1200 at 2X Clear Image Zoom). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and assembled in Framemagic.
White-lined Sphinx Moth
My friend Stef and I took a loop out through the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area yesterday to take in, among other things, the last of the Northern Blazing Star bloom. Blazing Star is endangered in Maine and the Plains are one of its last strongholds. I was reminded just how important a resource it is. Besides flocks of busy Goldfinches and Pine Warblers, the Blazing Star along Day Brook Pond was full of insects…butterflies and moths and bees and flies. When I first saw this White-lined Sphinx Moth I took it for one of the Clearwings. I have seen both Snowberry and Hummingbird Clearwings working the Blazing Star in the past. A closer look showed that despite similar size and behavior, this was a different moth. No transparent wings. I had to look it up when I got home. The White-lined Sphinx, like many Hawk moths, is mostly nocturnal, and mostly seen early and late, during dawn and dusk, so I can be forgiven for assuming it was a Clearwing. If I remember correctly, my only other sighting was years ago by artificial light on our back deck, feeding on the potted plants we keep there, when I, like many others, called it a Hummingbird Moth because of its size and behavior. (That name actually belongs to the Clearwing.) The White-lined Sphinx Moth occupies a huge range, all of North America and parts of Central America, and there are apparently known populations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. This one was very cooperative, working the same patch of Blazing Star for 15 minutes or more, and coming in close enough for lots of photos, before zooming off in search of a new patch of flowers. Sony RX10iv at 1200mm equivalent (2x Clear Image Zoom). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr.
Butterflies at Cock-of-the-Rock Lodge
I began chasing butterflies on my very first day in Peru, walking my first section of the Manu Road. Turns out there are lots of butterflies on the east slope of the Andes, in the run down from the Elfin Forest above Wayqecha Lodge to the emerging Rainforest around Villa Carmin. Butterflies were everywhere, but the easiest place to see (and certainly to photograph) them was where something sweet had been spilled, or something rich in minerals was seeping out into the road or into a roadside ditch. These were gathered at the entrance to Cock-of-the-Rock Lodge where, I can only assume, runoff from the staff quarters moistened the dirt. Still, what an assembly! If I am right in my identifications, they are Pink-banded Sister, Blue Perisama, Manu Perisama, and Rusty-tipped Page, all within a few square feet. Though they all look the same size in my collage, the Rusty-tipped Page is 3 times the size of the Blue Perisama, and a third again as big as the Pink-banded Sister. Sony RX10iv at 1200mm equivalent (2x Clear Image Zoom). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and assembled in FrameMagic.
Coral Hairstreak and Wood Lily revisited
I posted another in this sequence of images the other day. I was delighted to watch this Coral Hairstreak working a Wood Lily on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area here in Southern Maine. As this panel shows, and I tried to describe in the previous post, the butterfly worked its way across the flower and then back again as I watched. Sony RX10iv at 600mm optical equivalent, plus enough Clear Image Zoom to fill the frame. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and assembled in Framemagic.
Coral and Lily
This shot will justify the largest view you can provide 🙂 It was a cool, dry, sunny day in Southern Maine yesterday so my ebike photoprowl was delightful. And in the midst of the delight, while photographing more Wood Lilies out on the Rt. 99 side of the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, something caught at the corner of my eye and I turned in time to see this Coral Hairstreak land in another Wood Lily. It proceeded to harvest something from the petals, dragging its proboscis across the surface, working its way down one petal and back up, before moving on to the next petal. Here it is poised for the turn, with its proboscis tightly curled. Coral Hairstreaks are common on the Plains in July, and around the Wood Lilies (this is not the first I have photographed on a Lily), but here the light is perfect and the composition eye-catching. Beautiful flower. Attractive butterfly. What more could you ask for? Sony RX10iv at 600mm optical equivalent, plus enough Clear Image Zoom to fill the frame. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr.