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Archive for the ‘Butterflies’ Category

Butterflies in Panama

Posted in Birding, Butterflies, Panama on February 4, 2020| 1 Comment »

Here is a new wrinkle in the ongoing technology path of taking a picture. It is called “digi-scoping” or maybe “phonescoping”… it is using a digital camera phone with a telescope.  In Panama our guide to finding amazing butterflies was looking thru his spotting scope at a dime-sized tiny butterfly sitting on a tree trunk 25 feet away from us. “Here is a Dirce butterfly” he said. I looked thru my binoculars and there was a patterned beauty, Tino gestured and said “Give me your Iphone”.  I handed it over, he positioned it in front of the spotting scope, carefully moved it in minute increments to the perfect place, CLICK, and look at this wonderful photo.

Dirce Butterfly

Dirce Butterfly

The Dirce butterfly captured on my Ipnone. Marvellous!

Walking further down the deserted dirt road, Tino points to another tree 30 feet away and says “There is a Two Eye Eighty Eight butterfly on that trunk.”  I squint, look thru my binoculars and see an itty-bitty blob. He again takes my Iphone and works his magic … an image of a butterfly with two black spots shows on my Iphone. “Can I try? ” I ask. He gives me the Ipnone and I move the lens close … closer … too close … back a bit. No luck … no image emerges … AND … the little guy flies away. This is much harder than it looks when watching Tino. A delicate touch, and lots of practice is required!

Two Eye Eighty Eight

Two Eye Eighty Eight

Arriving at our lodge we are handed an empty plastic bottle and a man says “ Please fill this with your urine tonight to add to our ‘fermented brew’ which is sprayed on leaves along the trail. It attracts a lot of butterflies.” We are hot, tired, and fresh off our flight from the U.S., and it seems a strange request … but we comply and the next day, when we go out on the trail in the Panama jungle, we are rewarded with the Inca Metalmark butterfly sitting on the leaf sprayed with the brew. Phew! Who knew?

Inca Metalmark

Inca Metalmark

Here is the Canopy Tower

Canopy Tower

Canopy Tower

It used to be a radar tower built by the U.S. and abandoned years ago. Then it was converted into a hotel where birders and butterfliers stay as they look down on the tops of the tropical trees where many creatures spend their days. The deck four floors up provides a place to view toucans, monkeys, and butterflies. Many happy hours are spent seeing a whole different world.

Sloth
Iguana

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The Art of Hiding in Plain Sight

Posted in Butterflies, Texas Birds, Texas Butterflies on January 2, 2020| 1 Comment »

Tree With a Secret

Tree With a Secret

This ordinary tree hosts a butterfly who uses its mottled bark to camouflage its wings … it is so successful it takes me many minutes to spot the Variable Cracker butterfly. If you walk by this tree you hardly notice the dark gray spot blending in with the other spots.

Variable Cracker Butterfly

Variable Cracker Butterfly

The Cracker is cleverly hidden. I guess the butterfly who blends in the best is the one who survives to pass on his camouflage genes.

Variable Cracker Butterfly

Variable Cracker Butterfly

The pattern on his wings is so elegant…looks like watered silk.

Can You See It?

Can You See It?

There is a bird here! Can you find him ? Look for his open eye … that might help … a master at disappearing. He is the Pauraque, a nocturnal bird of the brushlands from southern Texas to northern Argentina.

 

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Butterflies In Winter, Butterflies in Summer

Posted in Butterflies, My Paintings, Natural Phenomena on January 21, 2019| 1 Comment »

As summer winds down, the butterfly finds fewer flowers to sip from and, when the first hard freeze arrives, it is preserved in ice to be discovered the next spring. Such a contrast from the sunny days of summer when this fragile-winged creature flits through fields of flowers completing its life cycle and assuring new generations of butterflies. The revolving wheel of life!

 

Winter Butterfly
Winter Butterfly
Winter Butterfly
Summer Butterfly and the Moon
Summer Butterfly
Butterflies and Lupines

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Dinosaur Butterflies

Posted in Butterflies, My Paintings on January 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »

In the time of dinosaurs (150 million years ago) there lived the ancestors of the modern butterflies called Lacewings. When the impression of a Lacewing was discovered pressed into stone the finder/scientist cleverly took tiny bits of the stone and ground it up to examine it and determine the color of the eye spot and wings. Here is my imagined re-creation of the lacewing based on his findings along with a  photo of the Red Admiral butterfly currently seen in the Rio Grande Valley.

Dinosaur Lacewing
Red Admiral

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Recent Paintings

Posted in Butterflies, My Paintings, tagged , , on October 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Red and Yellow Honeycreepers

Red and Yellow Honeycreepers

Hawaii was surprisingly forested on the “wet side” of the Big Island.  We hiked into the Forest Reserve hoping to see the Red and Yellow Honeycreepers. With luck and patience we saw them in the tops of the O’hia trees. In order to see the tops of the trees, Carrina hiked into an old crater which over the years had filled in with trees down in the bottom … as you stood on the lip of the crater looking down into it you saw the O’hia tree tops with birds sipping on the O’hia blossoms. This painting reflects my impression of Hawaii.

Desert Orangetip

Desert Orangetip

A continuation of my butterfly paintings inspired by the Desert Orangetip seen at the top of the Sierras … he must be lost as this is not desert but there he was!

Hoary Comma

Hoary Comma

Flitting around the Red Currant bushes was a gorgeous Hoary Comma with his lacy wing edges. He lit … he posed … a click of the camera and I could examine him in detail. Beautiful markings.

Landscape of Stark Choices

Landscape of Stark Choices

A consideration of time is what this painting is about. It is titled “landscape of Stark Choices”. There is a fossil shell and a living butterfly connected by eons of time.

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A Yummy Snack

Posted in Butterflies, Texas Butterflies, tagged on April 6, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Hairstreak Butterfly

Hairstreak Butterfly

“Many hairstreak butterflies have an elaborate false eye near the edge of their hindwing, often with slender tails that resemble antennae, creating the impression that the back of the insect is in fact the front.”  This quote is from “A Buzz in the Meadow,” a great book by Dave Goulson about the natural history of a French farm.

So is that clever or what? I see many butterflies with bits missing out of their wings where birds and other predators have taken a swipe at them.  In order to confuse the birds further they usually do a swift 180 turn when they land so the bird thinks their protein-rich body is at the opposite end of where it really is … thereby giving the bird a bit of hindwing but preserving the body of the hairstreak. Saved to fly another day!  Imagine how many generations of butterflies it took to evolve those two orange false eyes and the inclination to land with a quick reverse of direction. Apparently eye spots frighten off predators. Certainly they add to the beauty of the butterfly for we who value beauty.

 

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Huisache Tree Oils – $2000 a pound?

Posted in Butterflies, Texas Butterflies, Texas Trees, tagged , , on March 8, 2018| 2 Comments »

The HUISACHE tree is blooming in Texas. Shall I handpick a ton (or 2 or 3) of those small orange flowers and press the oil out of them? These trees have a pleasant, fresh, violet-like smell which drifts on the breeze, tickling your nose and your memories.

First, here is how the Egyptian cultures did it …”Traditional Egyptian practice involves pressing the plant material, then burying it in unglazed ceramic vessels in the desert for a period of months to drive out the water. The water has a smaller molecular size, so it diffuses through the ceramic vessels, while the larger essential oils do not. The lotus oil in Tutankhamen’s tomb, which retained its scent after 3000 years sealed in alabaster vessels, was pressed in this manner.” WIKIPEDIA

In the 1800’s the French perfumers imported Huisache trees and cultivated them in order to extract the oils and use them in perfumes. They devised a method of crushing the flowers with coconut oil or cocoa butter to extract the scent. That is why the oil was priced at $4,400/ kilogram (2.2 pounds). This product was called cassie oil. I invite you to come to Texas and gather a few tons of tiny, fluffy, orange balls and press the oil out of them….or just cover yourself in coconut oil and rub lots of orange flowers on yourself until you achieve the scent you want. You might attract a Crimson patch butterfly. Perhaps you will have a White Peacock butterfly land on you so you do not have to chase this flitter, flitter, fly-away guy around a 100 acre garden in order to photograph him. Anything is possible!

 

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How They Fool US!

Posted in Butterflies, Texas Butterflies, tagged , , , , on December 9, 2017| 1 Comment »

Perched on a tree about head-high is a plain black-brown butterfly who slowly begins to open his wings to bask in the sunshine. As he does so, a sliver of iridescent blue appears. He could have been an old brown leaf until he unfurls his black and blue stripes to the sun. The white dots dazzle the viewer of the Mexican Bluewing.

A mud-brown leaf lying on a rock shifts slightly revealing that he is a living butterfly.  I am unimpressed and snap a casual photo but then notice that if I look closely with the sun behind him he has a red-orange streak on his wing. He prepares to leap into the air where both wings open wide showing an intense orange flash. It is a Tropical Leafwing! What a transformation from plain to breathtaking color.

With the sun climbing overhead and lighting the fringed edges of the Questionmark butterfly it is obvious that this is a.spectacular specimen.  Golden with chocolate dots scattered over his wings he seems too beautiful and fragile to exist. The morning sun warms him and he drifts away to conduct his life among the Hackberry trees of the Rio Grande Valley.

Hot, humid air hangs over the beds of Blue Mist Flower and hidden down in the depths is a tiny one inch butterfly tightly closed and seeming to be a wrinkled leaf. As the sun climbs higher he emerges to fly from flower to flower flashing his metallic blue wings. The iridescence makes it impossible to miss him but he flies fast and trying to take his picture as he flits erratically around is difficult. He deserves his name of Blue Metalmark. A joy to see.

The Bordered Patch butterfly is somewhat nondescript with his wings closed but he still shows you what to expect when the wings open…yellow-orange stripes and glowing white dots on a black background He is a big, showy butterfly who floats above the flower beds with slow wing beats.

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The Tiny Blue Metalmark Flirts With Us …

Posted in Butterflies, Texas, tagged , on November 12, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Once again we set off to drive an hour to a butterfly garden before it gets too hot and humid. We were told by a person at the NABA butterfly gardens that “we were likely to see the Blue Metalmark ” at Resaca De La Palma State Park.  After expressing our doubts that this glorious event would actually happen we agree to get up the next day and go TRY to see  it.

We drive and drive and finally arrive at the park and look in disbelief at a sign on the gate blocking our way. It says “CLOSED – open Wed thru Sat” and today is Tuesday. We can see the visitor Center ahead of us … so we gingerly unhook the gate and drive in.  Ambling over to the hedges we see many plain brown butterflies sitting there with their wings closed.  This is disappointing as we wanted to see a BIG Iridescent BLUE butterfly, and then we hear shouts from Tom and D.L.

“Come quick!  We have found it!” and they point to a half-inch, tiny, blue butterfly. It is the Metalmark … we just had unreal expectations. When they close their wings they become a drab brown. . After looking it up in the book it says the guy should be half an inch … but what a color he flashes at us!! We spend a happy hour combing the bushes for more of them and sure enough there are quite a few. I make a mental apology to the young lady who told me they were at this place as I had so many doubts that she knew where they could be found.

Another wildly successful day out in the thickets of Rio Grande Valley.

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The Red Admiral and the Mexican Bluewing

Posted in Butterflies, Natural Phenomena, tagged , , on May 1, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Walking by a tree in the Rio Grande Valley, my eye is attracted to a two foot long stick with a moving surface.  Going closer I see many insects crawling over a gloppy brown mound. In the middle sit two brilliant butterflies gently waving their wings while their delicate probosces ties them to the glop.

“They are drinking fermented fruit and this is a drunken butterfly party …” a voice behind me says softly. “That is a Red Admiral and that one is a Mexican Bluewing.”

Turning I see a face reflecting the wonder my own face wears. A smile, a wink, and an extended hand introduce me to the Park Naturalist who proceeds to tell me how to make a butterfly feeder. Find a fallen limb of Honey Mesquite, cut it into pieces, gouge a shallow trough in one side, hang it from a  tree, and mix up a batch of “glop” to use as bait and then wait for the crowd to arrive The crowd here is beetles, wasps, flies and butterflies. They are drinking  a fermented mixture of the 3 “B’s”. The friendly man standing next to me, named Huck, informs me that ” Anyone can make this with one third beer, one third over-ripe bananas, and one third brown sugar. It has to sit for a few days and Presto! …you are ready for a drunken party of tropical butterflies.”  As we speak up drifts a third party-goer to land and push his tongue into the fragrant mess. ”

 

Hackberry Butterfly

Hackberry Emperor Butterfly

 

The latest arrival is a Hackberry Emperor who prefers our alcoholic “glop” to the flowers of the Hackberry tree he depends on. Looking at his lacy, almost translucent wings and dainty feet planted in our glop it seems apparent that all creatures desire the thrill of alcohol.  He refuses to leave the feast even when touched with a forefinger … just moves a millimeter over without removing his tongue. The heady ripe-fruit smell wafts over us and more butterflies arrive for a taste. I resolve to make a feeder.

D.L. and his newly made butterfly feeder

D.L. and our newly made butterfly feeder

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