Appalachian Wildlife – Page 15 – LLOYD'S LENS PHOTOGRAPHY LLC

The Spicebush Swallowtail Finally Makes It’s Appearance

Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Spicebush Swallowtail On Cardinal Flower 1”. All of the photos are my original work and are available as prints by following the instructions at the bottom of the article.

I pulled into the parking lot of the little park at Kanawha Falls in my way home. I have been looking for the Spicebush Swallowtail all summer and I was beginning to think that I would strike out this season. I worried that I had jinxed myself by making a commitment back in the Spring. I knew that I would find something interesting to shoot in this spot and was actually trying to get some more ducks for my Things Are Just Ducky series so that I could expand the tales of George the mallard and his friends. But the ducks were all on the other side of the river.

Then I noticed the bright red spires of the Cardinal flower. These are also called Indian Paintbrush locally and they’re members of the Bellflower family and are sold as ornamental plants. I have a few pictures of them but they’re interesting to look at so I thought that a few more would be a good idea. As I stepped into the shade of the oaks I could see a dark spot fluttering around the bushes. Okay I thought. Another butterfly of any kind will add interest to the image. Raising the lens and zooming in as tightly as I could yielded a picture but the flash wasn’t really strong enough to reach out and freeze the wings.

Image Title: “Life In Motion”. Butterflies “groom” the flowers that they feed on. The fluttering of the forewings causes the flowers to sweeten their nectar.

The combination of the low light and extreme zoom didn’t quite hit the mark but it produced an interesting picture. The butterfly would only be there for a moment so tried to close the gap as quickly as possible. Unfortunately I started it and it disappeared into the forest. I tucked the camera back into its bag. Once I got the card into my laptop and pulled up the image I saw that pattern that I’ve been obsessed with all summer. The hind wings have a blue moon shape and a single row of cream colored dots along the margin. But this was a dorsal view and the main identifying mark was on the other side of the wing. I would be going back to that spot.

Over the next few days I stopped by looking for the Spicebush Swallowtail. I was certain that it was a female by the blue marks on it’s hind wings. The male has more of a greenish color leading the name of “Green Clouded Butterfly”.

Image Title: “Female Spicebush Swallowtail Feeding On Cardinal Flower”. The image gives us a clear view of the light blue marks on it’s hind wings.

The feature image came from the second encounter. This time she didn’t really seem to be bothered by presence. She even let me get a good shot of the blue chevron on the underside of the hind wings that is the identifying mark of the Spicebush Swallowtail.

Image Title: “Butterfly Peek-A-boo”. The third orange dot from the right is replaced by a blue chevron. Only the Spicebush Swallowtail has this mark.

The butterfly gets it’s name from hosting mainly on the Spicebush tree. I’ll be talking about the tree itself in an upcoming Forage Friday post but in short it’s another source for lemon flavored tea. Like the other Swallowtail Butterflies the Spicebush Swallowtail catipiller mimics the head of a snake. It even has a special organ that is forked and it can flick out to look like a snake’s tongue. I have not encountered a Spicebush Catipiller yet but as soon as I do I’ll be posting pictures and writing about the lifecycle of the butterfly larvae.

The main lesson I gained from my summer searching for a supposedly common butterfly that managed to elude me for months was that persistence pays off. The person who said that nothing is easy sure got it right but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

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Morning Commute

Color Photography, wildlife

The early morning sun peeks over the ridge and warms the grass near the Kanawha River. Young eyes, being new to the world blink open and look on in wonderment at all of creation. Mother Goose gathers her brood and leads them down into the water. School is in session and it’s time to practice swimming in a line. A few of the goslings struggle with being distracted. A bug swims past and tempts a little one into the chase. Mother Goose easily out flanks the game player and nudges him back in line. He’s got to stay with the flock or he could fall prey to the “river wolves” a name given to the local muskie population which are known to snatch a stray. But as a group the large fish sees the flock as one big animal on the surface. The family of geese make it to the rocks without incident. There they soak in the sunshine and strengthen powerful wings that will soon carry them hundreds of miles away from the chill of winter. Mother Goose shows some concerns about the big blue truck parked on the edge of water and the strange two legged creature with one eye focused on her brood. So, not being one who wants to upset Mother Goose I lowered my lens and left them to there lessons. Perhaps I’ll be passing by when they are flying in their V formation this Fall.

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The Singer

Color Photography, wildlife

Near the boat launch below Kanawha Falls is wonderful old sycamore tree with a hollow base. The old tree has survived a multitude of floods and it roots are exposed so naturally I’m looking down as I pass beneath it’s beaches. Just a few feet above my head I heard the rustling sounds of something moving through the leaves. A tiny hunter soon emerged from a clump of leaves and began to watch me with a serious intensity. Apparently I was encroaching upon his hunting grounds. In an effort to point out that I was being very rude he flitted and fluttered from twig to twig and each time he paused to check my reaction. I snapped the feature image during one of those pauses. However, the thrush remained unimpressed and continued his nonverbal rant. Not being one to hang around when I’m unwanted I continued on to the edge of the launch to capture the falls and hydroelectric plant in my lens.

Kanawha Falls 71119 — The falls and hydroelectric plant on 7-11-19

I wasn’t out of the thrush’s territory for long when I thanked with a beautiful song from his his branches

There are times when I wish that I had a full range of audiovisual equipment and could fully immerse you the experience. There’s something about a thrush’s song that just exudes happiness. I was able to find a decent YouTube video of a thrush’s song for you.

Waking up to the thrush’s song is one of the best things about the warm months. There’s was a time when I preferred to sleep with the windows open because there was no air conditioning. I would fall asleep to the Whip-poor-will and wake up to the thrush. It always seemed to herald a good day to hear those joyful notes.

As I made my way back to the big blue truck I was careful not to disturb my little friend among the branches.

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The Lunch Buddies

Color Photography, wildlife

It was hot day on the Kanawha River as my big blue truck rolled into the shade for a quick break. In spite of the humidity I opted to roll the window down and enjoy some fresh air. Little did I know that a very important business meeting was going on under the large oak trees. Being a bit of a snoop I turned down the podcast that was planning on the radio and eavesdropped on the conversation. These guys were really excited and chattering like crazy. After some strained listened I discovered that they were about to corner the acorn market! They made plans about how they would enjoy their wealth. The plan was to buy their own tree in the best part of the park far away from the hawks and owls. They have a special place for the chipmunk to come and visit and would give him his own room under the the roots where he could burrow and tunnel to his heart’s content. They would even have room for that crazy old opossossm to hang from his tail. The tree they had picked out had several abandoned woodpecker dens where they each have their own room. All they had to was to continue to collect and store as many acorns as they could carry. They paused only for a moment to update the map that they had drawn on the back of a leaf with an unburnt piece of charcoal recovered from the nearby grill. The map would help them remember where each and every hard earned acorn was stashed. They quickly hid their map in a hollow stump and pushed a large flat rock over the opening. They had finished their lunch early and after a quick game of tag around the oak they imeadiatly went back to work stashing acorns anywhere there was a hole they could commandeer. Suddenly they noticed that the guy in the big blue truck was holding his camera out of the window documenting all of their secret plans. One of them quickly disappeared behind the oak and the other one tried his best to blend into the bark.

Hiding in plain sight — One of the “Lunch Buddies” pretending to be invisible.

Not really wanting to interfere with their plans, I pulled the lens back into the window of the big blue truck and cranked the engine. Before I even left the shade of the oaks I could see the Lunch Buddies in my rear view mirror collecting acorns like crazy. I expect that on my next trip to the park they’ll be be living in the tree of their dreams.

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A Conversation For The Birds

Color Photography, wildlife

Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Robin Eating Honeysuckle Berries” and is available for purchase by following the instructions at the bottom of the article.

One of my favorite movies was Jeremiah Johnson. The movie staring Robert Redford is a fictionalized version of a true story. There’s a couple of scenes where Redford just freezes in mid sentence and scans the mountains visually because he knew something was wrong. The mountains were silent in those scenes. What tips the mountain man off to danger in the scenes is very subtle. It’s the alert call of a robin.

I have never actually read the book “What The Robin Knows” but it’s often been referred to in other wilderness guides and videos. The book encourages you to pay attention to the sounds of nature. Birds especially. They’re the tattletales of the forests.

The individual calls and their meaning is literally a complete language in and of itself. A person could devote an entire blog to that subject alone. During the course of writing this article I did a quick Google search and found enough material for anyone to learn the basics.

The types of calls are:

Location calls, which helps them to keep track of babies and mates.

Flock calls, which is keeping track of the flock.

Food calls, which communicates that food has been located.

Mating calls, when romance is in the air.

Alert calls, to warn of danger.

I have probably left something out but this is enough to get started.

Something that I like to pay attention to is the “holes” in the bird chatter. This works like sonar for locating predators in the woods. Or even lost people for that matter. During hunting season I let the birds tell me where the other hunters are by paying attention to the holes in the bird chatter.

The little robin in tonight’s feature image is feasting on fly honeysuckle berries. These berries are poison to people but are a staple crop for birds. The little guy was having the time of his life with a whole bush full of berries all to himself! I watched him gobble down a few of the bright red globes before heading out to have my own dinner.

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