A Butterfly Minute

Last weekend, my husband and I photographed the butterflies at Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy…and I took a lot of photographs – just as I did back in May (post 1, post 2). Instead of posting a barrage of pictures, I am going to pick some favorites and feature one butterfly at a time. Today the featured butterfly is a Pipevine Swallowtail.

In my photographs – that were all taken in less than a minute – the underside of the wings, with the seven spots that are a distinguishing characteristic of the butterfly, are clearly visible.

This was a busy butterfly – visiting 5 flowerets in less than a minute!

The butterfly seems to be in constant motion….feeding quickly on the rich source of nectar it found. I don’t think it rolled up its proboscis between flowers.

It will rest later with its wings open…displaying their deep iridescent blue at the bottom and black at the top.

Hiking from Mt. Pleasant to the Patapsco River – Part 1

Last weekend – before the higher temperatures came to our area – I joined a hike from Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm to the Patapsco River. I arrived early enough to take some pictures with my new camera…make sure the connection between the camera and phone was adding geotags. It worked! After the hike, I used Photoshop Elements to display my pictures on a map and thus the path of our hike (click on picture for larger image).

I took pictures of two places at Mt Pleasant prior to beginning the hike: the plants blooming in the garden near the blacksmith’s shop

And some bluet damselflies at the pool in the Honors Garden…and bright flowers nearby.

The first part of the hike was along a mowed path that eventually went through hay fields with high grasses on both sizes. I’d worn long pants tucked into my socks to avoid ticks but being on mowed paths is still a good idea.

There were signs of civilization in the distance – but it was surprising how quickly signs of civilization are blocked by other vegetation.

My favorite picture for the first half of the hike was this wild chive among the grasses.

There was a butterfly holding onto a swaying stalk – I only got the one angle so am not sure whether it is a spicebush butterfly or a black swallowtail. I like the way the light comes through the wing.

Just before we entered the forest – I turned back for a picture of the mowed grass trail we had just come down. The second half of the hike to the river would be through the forest…and shady. That will be the topic of tomorrow’s post.

Zooming – May 2017

I used the zoom on my camera so much in May that almost every picture was a candidate for this post. I picked some images that were no previously included in posts for the slide show below:

• A fly perched on a tiny yellow flower covered in water droplets
• New leaves at the tips of the maple branch – and a fly that I didn’t see until I looked at the picture on a big screen
• A butterfly head and shoulders…the zoom is enough that the individual yellow scales show in the darker part of the wing.
• New leaves on the sycamore. The size variation of sycamore leaves is very large: small fingernail to dinner plate.
• A resting butterfly
• Peonies: flower and bud
• An insect that looks like dried leaves
• A monarch caterpillar
• A butterfly – again the individual scales can be detected as ‘powder’ over the darker markings
• A chipping sparrow making a mess at the feeder
• A butterfly wing collage

Enjoy!