Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Friday, July 24, 2009
Dead Leaf, No, Wait
I was about to brush a dead leaf away from the front doormat this morning, when I noticed that it was curiously symmetrical. Curious, that is, for a leaf. But not for a moth.
It turned out to be fairly easy to look up. I searched for orange moth on bugguide.net and it showed up on the first page of search results.
This is the Spiny Oakworm Moth aka Anisota stigma. They spend the winter underground as pupae and emerge in the summer as adult moths. The adults do not feed, according to Butterflies and Moths of North America. The caterpillars, however, are voracious consumers of oak leaves.
Fortunately we have plenty to spare.
Now I have got to go clean that doormat so it looks good the next time I find an interesting moth on it.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Butterflies and Associates
A mostly-pictures post with all of last Friday's butterfly photos. With any luck I can repeat the exercise today. Butterflies are fluttering and dragonflies are zipping and hovering all over the garden and meadow at this time of year. I find dragonflies to be much harder to photograph than butterflies.
You've already seen the Great Spangled Fritillary, but this is a different shot.
I created a Flickr account several months ago and have been posting photos there as well as to Picasaweb. The photo above is posted at Flickr.
This American Lady butterfly was nectaring on Spotted Knapweed too, but then flew off to rest in a Juniper tree.
Two different kinds of Oregano are in bloom and both are very popular with the butterflies and bees. This is an Orange Sulphur on the purple/pink flowered Oregano. I think the botanical name is Origanum vulgare, but Oregano taxonomy is confusing at best.
Here's a Cabbage White on the same Oregano. A very common butterfly, probably the most common butterfly in my garden, but check out the bee about to come in for a landing.
On the white-flowered Oregano, I found a Gray Hairstreak...
...which seems to be the same individual I photographed earlier in the meadow. Notice the same notch out of one wing.
Now we come to the Skippers. They still drive me to despair trying to identify them. Any idea which one this is?
These two, I believe, are Least Skippers. There should be more of them around for future study.
OK, that's it for the butterflies. Now we have the associates. 2007 was the first summer I planted lots and lots of Verbena bonariensis. Suddenly, it became easy to photograph clearwing moths because they just can't get enough Verbena nectar. They're so attracted to it that they let me get very close with the camera. This is a Snowberry Clearwing Moth.
And, lastly, a new-to-me dragonfly. This - a Banded Pennant - is small compared to some of the helicopter-sized ones I haven't yet been able to photograph.
Labels: butterflies, dragonflies, insects, moths
Friday, May 29, 2009
Things I Never Saw Before
Lately, I've been thinking this blog might be getting a bit stale. You know... repetitive, undifferentiated ........ boring.
Then, out of nowhere, nature conspires to shake me out of my doldrums. I was walking toward the vegetable garden with tools in my hands when I saw something not quite right. There seemed to be a lump of dirt...moving. Gee, that looks like a big turtle. Back I ran to the house to drop the garden tools and pick up the camera. It is a big turtle. I would guess the shell was 10 to 12 inches long.
Apparently an Eastern Snapping Turtle. That's the closest match I could find on the Turtles of Virginia page at the Virginia Herpetological Society website. I had never seen one before and was surprised because I assumed they were exclusively pond dwellers. Last I saw it, it was headed for our tiny little stream.
The next day I heard, then saw an Eastern Meadowlark.
A beautifully patterned bird, with a pretty (loud) song. And I had never seen one before.
Earlier, I found this moth with an odd bat-faced look.
Moth Update, June 5: It's been raining steadily since I got up this morning, so I had time to try to identify the moth today. I think it's a Harnessed Tiger Moth (Apantesis phalerata). There are several species of Tiger Moths, but the black spots which appear to be eyes (and are not) are a distinguishing mark of Apantesis phalerata.
And watched a Tufted Titmouse extracting larval bald-faced hornets from this nest.
Then while out photographing some of the meadow wildflowers (next post!), I found a new-to-me butterfly: the Carolina Satyr.
So that's five things I never saw before that magically materialized before my eyes in just a few days last weekend. Got to get back outside and keep looking...need new material for the blog.
Labels: birds, butterflies, critters, moths, turtles
Sunday, July 06, 2008
The Butterfly Airport
Have you heard of the Fourth of July butterfly counts? I have my own undisciplined, unscientific version which consists of hanging around the Butterfly Airport (Verbena bonariensis) and watching.
OK that first picture was a moth, not a butterfly, but looks to me just like a plane taking off. I haven't been able to get a good photo of the larger scene with all the butterflies fluttering around the flowers - this is the best one.
In just a few minutes, I counted six species (maybe more; all those indistinguishable brown skippers!) - Black Swallowtail, Clouded Sulphur, Eastern Tailed Blue, Gray Hairstreak, Sachem?, and Cabbage White.
The flower in the middle picture above is Verbena hastata 'Pink Spires'. It's sort of a secondary airport for smaller butterflies.
Other butterflies seen over the weekend, but not on Verbena and not photographed, were Regal Fritillary, Common Buckeye, and some type of Crescent.
Labels: butterflies, insects, moths, verbena
Monday, August 20, 2007
Things with Wings
Want butterflies? Plant verbena!
I was just astounded at the number of nectar-sippers hovering around the Verbena bonariensis this weekend in the country. Just in casual observation, I counted at least six different species of butterflies - Tiger Swallowtail (both light and dark forms), Spicebush Swallowtail, American Lady, Zabulon Skipper, other skippers (names still elude me - sorry), and a new one for me: the Common Buckeye. If it's so common, howcome I never saw one until this weekend?
And there was a different clearwing moth there too - this time it was Hummingbird Moth, and I have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to photos. I restrained myself and only posted four of them (1,2,3,4).
And speaking of embarrassment, after Lisa wrote last week that she only gets good photos of butterflies when they're mating, I claimed never to have seen such a thing. Well, look (adults only, please). I think there will be more Snowberry Clearwing Moths.
While I was taking these photos, another absolutely huge moth landed on a tomato plant. I have only a crummy picture to prove it, but I think it was a tomato hornworm adult.
More from the crummy picture department. I tried several times to get a good picture of a hummingbird this weekend. I failed. They were almost constantly feeding on the coleus flowers in front of the house, except not when I had the camera in hand. There is a hummingbird in this picture, but I'll let you search for it yourself. I think I'll try Ki's suggestion and see if I can get some decent video instead. Check out the huge coleus plants though. The tallest ones are close to 4 feet, not counting the flowers.
Labels: birds, butterflies, insects, moths
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Beginning of Autumn?
Well, gosh, I was going to write a post about August being the beginning of autumn, but I decided to check my archives before doing it. Good thing, too, because I was going to write very nearly the same thing I wrote a year ago. Everything I wrote then applies equally well today, except this time I have a good picture of a clearwing moth.
In that picture, it just looks like a bug, but when you see one of these hovering in front of a flower, you could swear you're looking at a tiny hummingbird.
Also, to update last year's post just a bit, Wikipedia now has a page showing the exact time of the traditional beginning of autumn. Going over to time.gov, I see that we are already 2 hours into autumn as I write this. Then why is it so darned hot?
