Zooming – July 2017

I limited myself to 10 zoomed images this month – and it was quite a challenge to choose the 10! Now that I am looking at them, I realize they reflect the places and sites I’ve enjoyed the most this July. 4 of the 10 are butterflies from Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit. I have enjoyed photographing them (when I am not on Flight Attendant duty) and appreciate the increased optical zoom of the camera I have now.

There are also some plants from the boardwalk between the Brookside Conservatories and the Nature Center: a horse nettle flower and a fiddlehead fern. Zooming allows me to stand on the boardwalk rather than contorting myself into a lower position and leaning off the boardwalk to get close to the plant.

I enjoyed another walk around Kenilworth Gardens this July. Somehow dragonflies and water lilies always draw my attention.

Finally – a walk in my neighborhood had its own photography opportunities. There was a leaf that fell on the sidewalk…tilted a little to show its changing color. And in a tree near the pond, there was a spider wrapping up a large catch in its web.

Ten Little Celebrations – July 2017

A lot has happened this July…and it was easy to pick 10 little celebrations to highlight:

A successful first road trip. I finally got a road trip in my Prius Prime. I didn’t celebrate the blow out that happened on the original start to the trip (I did celebrate that the blow out did not cause an accident) but the trip that re-started the day after was so enjoyable that thoughts about by car turned positive again.

A morning walk at Mt. Pleasant Farm. I’ll get around to posting about this walk because it was so enjoyable: temperature perfect for hiking, a flock of gold finches bathing in a riffle of the Davis Branch, dragonflies everywhere, Monarch butterflies in the meadow, a ground hog ambling out of the path ahead of me, a riot of vegetation – including ripening blackberries. It was very much a celebration of summer.

Great Blue Heron interaction with a dragonfly. Sometimes being in the right place to witness the interaction of two very different organisms is a celebration. I could photograph this one. It was a juvenile Great Blue Heron it is seemed perplexed about what to do when the dragonfly perched while the heron was looking for lunch. Eventually the heron moved…the dragonfly moved. This went on for a few minutes before the dragonfly got the idea to find another place to land.

Summer camp photographers at Mt. Pleasant. I celebrated another group of 5-12 year old photographers that took excellent pictures. I have a post planned for early next week about the adventure from my perspective. One of the counselors commented that the campers seemed so engaged with the activity. There is something about having a camera in hand that is almost magic.

Milkweed bug instars. This time of year, I am always thrilled to find a plant with a lot of instars of milkweed bugs. It almost always happens in July. They start out very tiny and almost all red and go through several stages getting larger and larger and ending up as adults that are orange and black…and with wings!

Our street. I am celebrating that the street repaving in front of our house is complete…and it wasn’t too traumatic while the work was going on.

Melons. We are getting melons from our CSA – always worth celebrating so rare we have gotten sun jewel melons, cantaloupe and yellow watermelon. Hopefully we’ll get some red watermelons in August.

Then there were celebrations associated with volunteering a Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit:

Butterfly laying an egg on my ring. OK – I’ll admit it was a very confused butterfly. But it was magical to have a butterfly become a part of my ring temporarily! I transferred the egg to the host plant afterward.

A 90-year-old birthday girl in Wings of Fancy. The lady was in a wheel chair but thoroughly enjoyed her family’s outing to the exhibit. Everyone that was in the conservatory celebrated with her!

Hummingbird moth at Brookside. I had been seeing the hummingbird moth on the walkway up to the ticket taker for the exhibit…and finally managed to get a picture. Celebration!

Volunteering at Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens V-X

In the training for volunteers at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy, they told us it would take about 10 shifts to feel comfortable with all the roles; I have that many now and have decided that it’s all about getting comfortable enough to accept the variability in the people that come to the exhibit and the environment (temperature, humidity) during the shifts. There has been something unique about each of my shifts so far…and I’ve enjoyed the 30 minutes I have walking around the gardens before each shift – taking pictures there and then locking my camera in a locker while I am busy with my shift. So – here are some images and notes from my July shifts at Wings of Fancy!

Before the 5^th shift, I noticed moisture on a very thorny plant and a small green insect (grasshopper?) that was decorating a yellow flower (also full of water droplets).

I walked toward the anniversary grove and saw a very trusting chipmunk. During the unique event of the shift inside the butterfly exhibit were owl caterpillars. They had hatched from eggs laid on a canna plant. They were so tiny compared to the butterfly they will eventually become!

The walk before the 6^th shift was frustrating. I only had my cell phone with me and there were so many insects that I saw but couldn’t photography well without the zoom of my camera. I did take a picture of the construction going at the Nature Center next door to the Brookside Gardens Conservatories. Inside the butterfly house there were mystery caterpillars! They had hatched from eggs laid on a plant in the basil family – not one that is normally deemed to be a host plant. But the caterpillars were growing like crazy eating it. They were thought to be tropical swallowtail caterpillars. One had already made a chrysalis.

I brought my camera to use on my walk before the 7^th shift. I took a couple of zoomed pictures of some flowers along the boardwalk between the conservatories and the nature center.

But best picture was of a very black dragonfly…a picture I would have missed if I’d only had my cell phone. Inside the caterpillar house there were still 3 cecropia moth caterpillars but they were all huge. It won’t be long before they will all be cocoons and we’ll need other stars for the caterpillar part of the exhibit.

I took even more insect pictures before the 8^th shift – all along the walk up to the ticket taking station to the butterfly exhibit. There were bees and skippers all over the cone flowers.

And a milkweed bug on some milkweed. The unique event of the shift was that the volunteer contingent was short the ticket taker so I moved from being a flight attendant to ticket taker. It was good to be outdoors for the shift but I prefer the flight attendant role.

Before the 9^th shift, I walked over to the anniversary grove and saw the chipmunk again. As I walked back toward the Conservatories, I saw a flower that was poised to unfurl

And a wasp exploring on a nearby plant.

I walked through the parking lot to check the boardwalk and found  Joe-Pye Weed before I got there….and it was full of butterflies. I took picture of two spice bush swallowtail butterflies. One was very battered and the other in better condition.

Inside the caterpillar house the new stars were Monarch and Queen caterpillars. They were too small to tell apart (without a magnifying glass – which we didn’t have). All the cecropia moths had made their cocoons.

The walk before the 10^th shift started at the Joe Pye Weed. There were at least 8 eastern tiger swallowtails on the plants! The ones with more blue around the bottom edge of the wings are females; the ones without blue are the males.

There are beginning to be some precursors to fall from the trees

Although there are still a lot of flowers full of pollen for bees (like this hibiscus).

The unique part of shift was the key lime plant was drawing tropical swallowtails to lay eggs. Many of the visitors not only got to see eggs already on the plant but butterflies in the act. As I was explaining what was happening to a group, a butterfly landing on my hand and laid an egg on my ring (a very confused butterfly, obviously)!

Previous posts re Volunteering at Wings of Fancy: prep, I, II-IV.

Battered Orange Dead Leaf Butterfly

The orange dead leaf butterfly looks like its name. The one I saw at the Brookside Garden Wing of Fancy exhibit was missing part of one hindwing…not enough to keep it from flying but enough to show that butterflies can get battered looking in the weeks  that are the last stage of their lives. It probably takes more energy to fly as the wings become less symmetrical and with less surface area.

It’s the underside of the wings that look like a dead leaf.

The upper side of the wings has a bold stripe of yellow and a powder of blue that has an iridescence to it.

I was glad I could walk on three sides of where the butterfly was slowly opening and closing its wings to get the images.

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.

Volunteering at Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens II-IV

I now have a total of 4 shifts volunteering at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy. I allow about 30 minutes before my 4 hour shift begins to walk around the gardens using my phone to take pictures. (I’m too busy during the shift itself to take any pictures at all.) I’ve never visited Brookside as frequently….and there is still something new to notice each time I am there. Before my second shift, I photographed the conservatory (note the door for staff and volunteers in front of the red car…almost surrounded by foliage),

A view through the tall deer fence into the Brookside Nature Center area,

A cat bird that was close enough to photograph with the phone, and

A cluster for flowers (yellow and pink surrounded by green).

The highpoints of the day included a group of 66 pre-schoolers at the butterfly exhibit. I was at the caterpillar station (which is before the entrance to the conservatory where the butterflies are flying about) when they came through with their chaperones (2 children per chaperone). I showed them the cecropia moth caterpillars (very large), told them to look at the butterflies with their eyes – not to touch, and sent them on to see the butterflies inside the conservatory. Later when I was at the exit station, a very confused butterfly was laying eggs on one of the metal stanchions that designates where to line up for the exit; there were quite a few elementary aged children (and some grandparents) that were there to see the drama too.

Before my third sift, it was sprinkling, but I walked a short distance out the pedestrian gate to take a picture of the plantings and sign at the gate of the gardens.

Then I walked down the gravel path of the anniversary grove (just inside the gate) and found some odd white blobs on a bald cypress. When I got home I did some research and discovered they are made by the Cypress Twig Gall Midge. It will kill the twig but the tree survives.

The highpoints of the day included: a wandering cecropia moth that was determined to leave the branch of black cherry leaves to make a cocoon (the caterpillar was put into a case with a branch where it made its cocoon) and seeing some tiny parasitoid wasps that had emerged from a chrysalis (rather than a butterfly). The containment precautions that are taken with the exhibit are not just for butterflies! Exotic parasitoids could be bad for our local environment too.

Before my fourth shift, I found some developing cones on a bald cypress (to compare with the Cypress Twig Gall that I saw the previous shift (and decided to check the galls each time I go to Brookside…see how they develop), and

Took several zoomed pictures of flowers that look ‘painterly.’

The highlights of the day included a group of Garden Bloggers and a fellow volunteer with Howard Country Conservancy visiting the exhibit with her family.

I’ve grouped the best of the rest of my pictures into themes: benches (aligned with a hedge, covered with lichen and crowded by flowers, and a butterfly bench in the shade.

Of course, there were flowers (and the seed pod of the Jack-in-the-Pulpit hiding under its leaves).

Insects (a bee in a hollyhock, a tiger swallowtail on a cone flower, a dragon fly on a bench, and a gold striped dragonfly…I wished from my better camera for that last one).

Pathways (to the azaleas, new boards in the walk between the Conservatory and the Nature Center, and gravel to the anniversary grove).

On the rainy morning, I got a picture of the metal butterflies without the blinding glare of the sun and savored the water collecting on leaves.

Previous post about Wing of Fancy Volunteering is here.

Volunteering at Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens I

My first experience volunteering at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy was earlier this week. It was a ‘trial by heat’ since it was a shift on a hot afternoon for 3+ hours. Before I left home, I collected things to take that would help be stay cool in the conservatory: water bottles with ice in the bottom, a mister, a hat, and a handkerchief. I took some peanuts for a snack. Everything went in a small bag with a penguin (a little psychology…thinking cool).

When I got there, I found a shady place to park (although it would not be shady there by the end of the shift) and took a short walk through the formal gardens. It was noticeably cooler in the shade…very hot in the sun and I was glad I had put sunscreen on before I left the car. I took some pictures quickly as I walked: a magnolia flower,

A pattern made of detritus on a pool of water,

The purple poppies past blooming,

An onion tangle,

A bit of blue in lots of green (and a shady place to stand),

And climbing roses.

Then the water came on. It brightened the colors of the rocks

And the plants in the rain garden area near the conservatory.

The butterfly sculptures marked the entrance to the exhibit.

I went in the staff/volunteer door, got my purple apron and other gear, and put my stuff in a locker. The shift started with a walk through of the stations and unique aspects of the day: slow because of the heat, a group had been due earlier but not arrived, etc. I started at the exit station and migrated to the discovery and caterpillar station (cecropia moth and Julia longwing). It was a slow afternoon with only about 15 people coming through the exhibit over 3 hours. There were times that there were no people at all in the exhibit….those times I wished we didn’t have a rule again cell phones and cameras while volunteering!

It was a good first experience although the next shifts I’ve signed up for are all in the morning. I now know that the two bottles with water frozen in the bottom (and can handlers to help them stay cool) which I fill at the water fountain just before going into the exhibit, will provide cool water for the entire shift and that the mister helps me handle the heat (misting around my neck and arms helps a lot). I also wet the handkerchief to cool ‘hot spots’ that I didn’t want to spray (like my face).

Prep for New Volunteer Gig – Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens

I’ve been preparing for a new volunteering experience for the past few weeks – to be a flight attendant or ticket taker for the Wings of Fancy (Butterfly exhibit) at Brookside Gardens. I’d noticed the call for volunteers as the first item on the Brookside web page back in May when I signed up for a photographers session in the exhibit; I talked to one of the volunteers during the session and decided that I would enjoy doing it too.

The process was not hard but more involved that I initially anticipated. The first part was online: signing up for training in the exhibit, filling out information to allow a background check (done now for volunteer jobs that interact with the public), and several e-learning modules about Brookside Gardens in general and then about the butterflies specifically. Last Thursday, I went to the training from 6:30-8:30 PM. It was an unusual time for me to be in the gardens and I got their early enough to take some pictures of the area near the conservatory (hence the pictures for this post). I'll probably take a few pictures before or after each shift - so will see a lot more of Brookside Gardens this summer.Horsetails

The two hours of onsite training were informative. Afterwards I felt like I do after most trainings before volunteering: knowing enough to be dangerous but not nearly as much as I will after I do it a few times. The gardens request 10 shifts (of 4 hours each) over the course of the season and told us that it may take as many as 8 shifts before volunteers truly feel ‘experienced’ in the role.

Stay tuned as I begin my journey as a Wings of Fancy Flight Attendant!

Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy – Part II

Continuing the post about our photography session at Brookside’s Wings of Fancy…..

The starry cracker looked like its name. I’ll remember this one from now on.

Now for two very similar butterflies. The first one is (probably) a ‘batwing’ from Asia – a red fuzzy body.

This one also has black wings and red on its body but it also has swallowtail-like lobes on the ends of its wings. It’s a Pink Rose and is native to the Philippines.

The malachite is a butterfly I’ve known about for several years from the Brookside exhibit. It is from Central and South America. Several of these images were against the glass wall of the conservatory. I liked the way the lights from outside highlighted the pattern of the wings.

The paper kite butterflies are large butterflies that seem to have extra flexion points in their wings. They flutter! It’s an Asian butterfly and well represented in butterfly houses around the world.

There were a few Monarch butterflies in the exhibit. I anticipate taking lots of Monarch pictures as my caterpillar(s) mature so I’ve only included on here.

The golden helicon is aptly named – note the gold tipped antennae.

The buckeye is surprisingly colorful upon close inspection. The powdery look on the wings makes it easy to imagine the scale structure that would be visible at higher magnification (and trauma to the butterfly). The wings were battered on this specimen. It is a butterfly I might see in Maryland!

The pipevine swallowtail is another than I might see where I live.

The next one is some other kind of swallowtail although the ‘tails’ are broader than we see on our local swallowtails. I thought the butterfly looked like it was yearning to be outdoors – even in the rain!

The brown tip is another one I’d seen before. When I found it on Wikipedia (Siproeta epaphus), I realized that there was considerable variability within the species so the link I provided for this one is to a more specific butterfly site.

The banded orange butterfly looks like its name – both from dorsal and ventral views. I like the ventral ones the best.

The butterfly with the orange dots is a male Grecian shoemaker. The female looks very different. It is from Central and South America…not sure why it is named the way it is.

A battered zebra mosaic butterfly – enjoying a banana. Even the body is patterned!

The leopard lacewing is another butterfly that has complex markings on the underside of the wing.

The golden birdwing is a butterfly in near constant motion. It flutters while it fees on flower – not resting it’s weight on the flower – hence the motions blurs.

The ruby-spotted swallowtail classification is a bit confusing. I found two references as seem to be conflicting but both look like the butterfly I photographed: Wikipedia’s Papilio anchisiades and Butterflies of America’s Heraclides anchisades. The common name is ‘ruby-spotted swallowtail’ in both cases.

I enjoyed the Focus on Butterflies session so much that I won’t mind doing it again this season. The call for volunteers to help with the exhibit is still on the Brookside web site so I signed for the next available training (in early June) and will volunteer thereafter. The exhibit continues until mid-September.

Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy – Part I

My husband and I signed up for the ‘Focus on Butterflies’ session last weekend. It’s a 2 hour time in the Wings of Fancy exhibit at Brookside Gardens before it opens to the public for the day….tripods allowed. It was quite an experience. We went in through an employee entrance at the side of the conservatory and entered the conservatory which was much warmer than outside. We quickly shed our jackets. The butterflies were very active and we immediately started taking pictures. I had a tripod and my monopod – ended up using the monopod the whole time. My Canon SX720 HS is light enough that the monopod works very well and had the added benefit of being a lot easier to move quickly.

I took over 400 pictures! I picked out the best when I got home and tried to group the ones of the same species together. Then I used the photographs I’d taken of the information board in the exhibit to try to identify the butterflies; it was a little difficult. I’ll do a better job of identification if I do another session later in the season. This time I prioritized magnified views of the heads and interesting features of wings.

The black and white butterfly was one of the first that I took. I was experimenting with how to get the clarity and magnification I wanted.

I took a picture of a blue morpho with its wings closed very early in the session not realizing what it was until later when I found one with a torn wing that was resting on a ledge…and was easy to photograph. Usually these butterflies are moving all the time and when they do sit they tend to show their ‘eyes’ rather than their blue wings.

An orange proboscis!

And orange tips on the antennae!

A Julia longwing with the distinctive arrowhead mark on the wing.

One of the volunteers for the session point out some Costa Rican clearwings. They are hard to see since they are small – and not colorful.

I always notice butterflies that have red – anywhere. These have streaks coming from the attachment site of the wing. The proboscis was very tightly coiled.

The Sara Longwing is metallic blue with two bands of white on the forewings. When I looked it up on Wikipedia I discovered that underneath it looks very much like the butterfly above with red streaks. Hmm…maybe those were Sara lacewings too.

There were two Atlas Moths that were in the same place the whole time we were in the conservatory. They do not have mouths and only live a few days.  

I’ll post about the other butterflies I photographed tomorrow!