Butterflies – Page 4

Silvery Checkerspots

About a week ago I noticed a favorite patch of Woodland Sunflower, Helianthus divaricatus, being quickly gobbled up by gregarious, tiny caterpillars. I took pictures of the less than one half inch critters, and started pouring over my many books on butterflies, moths, and caterpillars.

I always love a mystery – caterpillars eating beloved plants – good or bad? I was relieved to find that the sunflowers were being eaten by the larval stage of a lovely, native butterfly. The culprit? The butterfly, Silvery Checkerspot, Chlosyne nycteis. This is good! My woods, up here on the Blue Ridge are a butterfly garden!

Silvery Checkerspots have a wingspan of between 1.5 and 2 inches. Their host plants, or plants that their caterpillars eat, are Black-eyed Susans and Sunflowers. Adults chow down on the nectar of Red Clover, Common Milkweed, and Dogbane.

Almost grown caterpillars of the Silvery Checkerspot overwinter at the base of their host plants. I’m so pleased that the woods up here provide a good environment for Silvery Checkerspots!

AND I have no problem sharing the gardens around my cabin with native butterflies, even if sometimes things end up looking a bit battered. It is all for good.

Chicory

It has a color that pulls me in, bright medium blue, with a smidgeon of purple thrown in. It tugs at my heartstrings. Chicory, Cichorium intybus, is native to Europe but has become naturalized in many parts of North America, and is part of the roadside landscape here in central Virginia.

Chicory is a tough plant, sending its deep taproot into hard packed soil where other plants might have a difficult time. It blooms from June into October, producing just a few buds at a time on each plant. Each bud blooms for just one day.

The leaves are edible and are most tasty in early summer and in the autumn. The leaves in mid-summer tend to be bitter. The roots, roasted and ground, are used for an addition to coffee, or as a coffee substitute. Also, in beer brewing, the ground and roasted roots are occasionally added in the making of stouts and Belgian-style ales.

Its pollen and nectar entices insects, including bees, flies and butterflies. Chicory seeds, leaves and stems invite small mammals to come by for a meal or snack. And for those who love a bouquet of wildflowers, keep in mind that these flowers only last a day, and those stems are mighty rugged, requiring more than just a quick snap of the shoot.

Rather than taking some home, I will depend on my photographs and thoughts of that gorgeous purply-blue.

Red Admiral

A beauty, though small, stirs my curiosity as he flutters by, giving me very little time to capture his image with my camera. A Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta. A butterfly that you just might see if you put overripe fruit out on your back porch, since this is a favorite food. Also at the top of the culinary treats they enjoy, are sap flows in trees such as these, pictured below, created by Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers.

The Red Admiral has a wing span of about 2 inches or just a smidgeon more, and appears to have bunches of nervous energy, much like a fidgety little kid.

Here in central Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, there is an abundance of the native plant, Wood Nettle. As larvae, Red Admirals dine on plants of the nettle family, including Wood Nettle, Laportea canadensis. The image below is Wood Nettle, a perennial herbaceous plant with upper leaves that are alternate. The flowers you see in this photo are male flowers.

Female flowers form on the same plant, and bloom at the top of the plant, as shown in the next image.

This is not a plant that you want to brush against, since it causes an instant, unpleasant, burning and itching feeling. Fortunately this irritating sensation lasts for just a short time, but it’s best just to avoid it.

Given the wealth of Wood Nettle along the trails here in the mountains, I do not wonder at all why these beautiful butterflies accompany me as I hike these mountain trails.

Butterflies mostly black, with brilliant red, bright blue, and striking white dots. I welcome their company.

Eyed Click Beetle

A goal of my hike this morning was to find a cover shot for my Facebook timeline. I was collecting images of tree bark, lichen, and beautiful mosses, all possible candidates. At a mature sassafras tree, as I worked around some poison ivy vines, I came upon a surprise: two BIG eyes looking back at me. Turns out, it was an Eyed Click Beetle, Alaus oculatus, one mighty funny looking creature.

This beetle is pretty large, almost 2 inches long. He has enormous fake eyespots on his back, which are a means of protection. The eyespots and the pattern on his back are composed of scales, much like on the wings of butterflies. These eyespots are to startle predators, perhaps making them think that they have run into a critter much larger than the Eyed Click Beetle actually is. The Eyed Click Beetle’s real eyes, one on either side of its small head, are located at the base of its saw-toothed antennae.

The name “click beetle” comes from another means of protection. When a click beetle finds himself on his back, or when being held by a predator, the beetle will create an unnerving snapping or clicking sound by bending his head backwards and suddenly snapping it straight. This action creates the sound, and sends the click beetle several inches into the air. That is something that sure would shock me, if I wasn’t expecting it. The catapulting can put the beetle right side up, but if it doesn’t, he’ll try again until he is successful.

The larvae of most click beetles are called wireworms. Some of them are serious pests that feed on the roots of crops including potatoes, strawberries, corn and wheat, and also the roots of lawns. These destructive wireworms find their food by following the carbon dioxide produced by their foodplants in the soil. They often use preexisting tunnels to travel through the soil to get to their food. However, the larvae of the Eyed Click Beetle are well behaved predators, that prefer to eat caterpillars and the larvae of wood boring beetles and flies. The Eyed Click Beetle lives in the larva form (as a wireworm) for two to five years and spends that time underground or in rotting logs.

I’m hoping I’ll find another Eyed Click Beetle as I hike up my mountain tomorrow. Perhaps I can get him to do a catapult for me.

*Bloggers note:

This blog was originally posted in a slightly different form, in the summer of 2013. At that time, I was participating in a group blog (BeautifulWildlifeGarden.com), with smart, dear, nature loving friends. Unfortunately that website has gone belly up. I am resurrecting this post so that those of you who have not seen it, can read more of my ramblings.

Poison Ivy

Poison Ivy, Toxicodendron radicans

I’m feeling itchy already just anticipating writing this blog. It was not until I was well into my adult life that I first got a Poison Ivy rash, complete with huge blisters. OH! How very painful it was. Fast forward 30 years or so and I’ve grown to love, or at least truly appreciate the native plant.

Yes I do hold the plant in high regard, even though I am now extremely sensitive to urushiol, an oil found in all parts of the plant. The urushiol is not a defensive mechanism but rather aids the plant with retention of water. Urushiol is also found in Poison Oak, and Poison Sumac. A similar oil is found in the skin of Mangoes, and its leaves and bark. Nice to know about this. I won’t be chopping any Mango anytime soon, and will leave the preparation to someone else if it is on the menu. Eating the flesh of the Mango is no problem for me. The shell of the Cashew nut also contains a similar oil, and only creates a skin reaction until the Cashew is roasted. After roasting, the Cashew shell is problem free for those sensitive to urushiol.

This (photo above) is how a Poison Ivy plant starts out in spring, a brilliant crimson announcing its entry into the world. Perhaps the color is a warning. It certainly tips me off.

As spring begins to think of summer and warmth, as the Poison Ivy bursts forth with a thick growth of leaves, the plant blooms, with tiny pale yellow-green petals in clusters. The stamens are a standout color of school bus yellow.

As I’ve hiked my mountain trails I’ve noticed that one butterfly in particular will seek refuge on the leaves of the Poison Ivy plant. Time after time, individual after individual, Northern Pearly Eye butterflies (picture above) will alight on those leaves as if they provide some safety zone. These butterflies can feel safe. I will not hunt them down, except with my camera, while they are sitting on the Poison Ivy leaves!

Those leaves that are safety zones for some butterflies, can compete with any of the trees of autumn with their outstanding colors. Turning bright sunshine yellow, pumpkin orange or a rich deep red, they bring on an artist’s palette of warmth.

I am a big fan of Mother Nature whether it is birds, trees, flowers, frogs, toads, snakes, spiders, geology, weather – all aspects of it. This brings me to the above picture. The fruit of the Poison Ivy plant, drupes. Birds depend on these drupes as midwinter leaves them with few things to eat. I have seen many woodpeckers congregating on the Poison Ivy vines that wrap, cling and climb my huge oak trees in front of my cabin in late January. Little to eat but salvation in the Poison Ivy drupes.

The woodpeckers are not the only critters that find a meal at the Poison Ivy vine. Here a Chickadee dines on the drupes, keeping an eye on me, as he does.

I remove Poison Ivy when it emerges in one of my gardens, or on my paths that I regularly use, but if it is growing where only birds and the creatures of the woods venture, I leave it for them. I appreciate the beauty and the need for this native plant.

Fruit at the Cabin

In front of my cabin right now, there is a constant buzz . There are loads of trees and bushes involved in the sound, three good sized trees, planted soon after our cabin was built, many years ago – pear, MacIntosh apple, and Monmorency cherry, and a good number of blueberry bushes planted at about the same time as the fruit trees. Plus there are several wild cherry trees contributing to the buzz, at the edge of the woods.

As you might imagine, the sound is not exactly being generated by the trees and bushes themselves, but by the critters that are enjoying the nectar, like the Hummingbird Hawk-moth, Hemaris thysbe, pictured above, at the apple tree.

There are loads of bees and wasps. This bee is sipping nectar at one of the blueberry bushes.

The most plentiful species buzzing about is a large number of Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio glaucus. They give action to the scene with their constant motion and larger size. The two images, above, are both Eastern Tiger Swallowtails. The top image is a light morph female. The image immediately above is a male.

This, above, is also an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. It is a dark morph female. The dark morph female is mimicking the color and pattern of the Pipevine Swallowtail, Battus philenor. There is a measure of protection using this coloring and pattern, since Pipevine Swallowtails are poisonous and predators will be less likely to eat the mimic.

This visitor, a bit frayed, is one of my favorite butterflies, a Zebra Swallowtail, Protographium marcellus. If this butterfly were newly emerged from its chrysalis, it would have two swordlike tails and the faded coral spots, that you see here, would be a brilliant crimson.

Another butterfly buzzing about is the Silver-spotted Skipper, Epargyreus clarus, one of our largest skippers. Interesting: it is said that the Silver-spotted Skipper will not seek the nectar of flowers that are yellow. I’ll have to watch the yellow flowers on the mountain, and see! This skipper is quite common in the area.

All this action, sipping of nectar, brings on pollination of the blooms. Soon there will be apples, pears, cherries, and blueberries as a result, enough to keep me busy for a while, like the pollinators that are busy right now!

Hackberry

Here on Snow Mountain, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, I see quite a few hackberry trees, Celtis occidentalis. Most are trees with circumferences of 5 inches or smaller, trees that have not been around long. Their small size may be, in part, because the forest up here is a young forest. Back in the 1950s and 1960s the mountainsides were farmland—no forests. Farm families had a tough existence along the Blue Ridge, with loads of rocks to deal with, and difficulty getting up and down the very steep, dirt roads. Time marches on, and now there is forest up here and very few people.

The hackberry tree is a favorite of mine, simply because of its bark. This bark is what first brought the tree to my attention. It looks like a topographic map, in 3D, warty and corky. I frequently do work in Shenandoah National Park, on the Buck Hollow Trail, and get to see larger, more mature hackberry trees at that location.

Hackberry trees are native to North America. Given favorable conditions, one of these trees could live to be 150 or 200 years of age. They grow to be medium sized trees, 60 or 80 feet tall or taller, depending on the soil and moisture conditions. They tolerate pollution, although only occasionally are they used as a street tree.

The trees’ berries are edible, though I seldom notice them. Summer brings the berries a red-orange color, which turns to dark purple in the fall. Birds love them.

Looking much like a berry, what I do notice, and use as an identifier, are galls that seem to always be on some of the branch tips or just below the leaf on the petiole.

The galls are the home to young nymphs of an insect—the petiole gall psyllid. These insects and their galls do not do major harm to the tree.

Along with the wildlife benefits of the berries, the hackberry tree is also the larval host to question mark, mourning cloak, and American snout butterflies. It is also the nectar source for several other butterflies and moths.

The photograph, above, is of an American snout, who alighted on my camera strap last summer, as I was hiking. A chance encounter with another admirer of the hackberry tree!

Virginia Pine

The holidays. They’re here. They’ve got me thinking of pine trees, and pinecones. And I’m wishing for snow. I’ve had a tiny bit of snow already, but I’m ready for more.

This is Virginia pine, Pinus virginiana. I live in a cabin, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in central Virginia. There are plenty of Virginia pine up here, in part because it is a pioneer plant. Pioneer plants will take over abandoned farm fields. Fifty and sixty years ago these mountains had very few trees. Even in the higher elevations, such as where I live, there were fields of corn, as far as the eye could see. As the corn fields were abandoned, pioneer plants, such as Virginia pine and black locust, took over. There are many other trees up here now, as the older trees, that took over the fields, mature, and make way for other tree species, as the forest matures.

Virginia pine is native from southern New York state, through the Appalachian Mountains, on into Tennessee and Alabama. The tree is small to medium sized, growing to 40 or 60 feet tall. With optimum growing conditions, a tree may reach 100 feet. The tree will tolerate, quite easily, very poor sandy soil, but prefers loam or clay.

The cones on Virginia pine will stay on the tree for several years. Small birds and mammals will eat the seeds from the cones. White-tailed deer will eat the branch tips and needles. The young pines provide shelter for small animals and are a popular tree for woodpeckers, because of the soft wood.

In the picture below, a red-breasted nuthatch is eating pine seeds.

The bark of Virginia pine is a mosaic of loose plates, reddish brown in color. A typical pine bark. The needles, twisted, bundled in pairs, 1.5 to 3 inches in length.

My husband and I may choose to cut a Virginia pine, as our Christmas tree this year. Surely there is one that is just the perfect size and shape. If things go as they usually do, we will wait until it is extremely cold and snowing to bring the tree in from the forest. Cold with blowing snow, perfect weather for cutting down a Christmas tree. I hope that, at the very least, we will have tromped through the woods, and selected and marked which tree will grace our great room, while the weather is pleasant. That being done, the cutting ceremony will be short and sweet, though very cold!

This monarch butterfly, in a picture from early July of this year, may be hinting at its choice for our Christmas tree. I think I’ll give this tree serious consideration!

Spicebush

As the woods are shutting down this fall, there is fruit to be had. Fruit for many birds and small mammals. Fruit for the adventuresome human as well.

These are the berries (also known as drupes) of Spicebush, Lindera benzoin. Berries that turn a brilliant scarlet in September, when the leaves are still a lovely contrast. A contrast, of emerald green. The leaves and twigs, if rubbed in your hands, will give off a pleasant, spicy fragrance. For those adventuresome humans I mentioned, the leaves and twigs can be used to make a tea. The berries can be dried and crushed to be used as a spice. While out today, my curiosity got the best of me. This afternoon I tasted some of the berries. I have to report that I was not impressed. Not unpleasant, but nothing to write home about either.

By late October, the leaves that once were emerald, are now a shining yellow, glowing in the forest. Calling attention to the shrub, wherever it grows. It grows in moist, shady locations, but if it is given just a tiny bit of sun, more berries will be produced.

As the shining yellow leaves drop to the forest floor, it’s easier to see the bark of the small trunks of the shrub. Small trunks that are speckled, as if a pretzel. A pretzel that is the wrong color. A soft grayish brown pretzel.

What is left behind, after the leaves have fallen, is a vision of what is to come. Buds that will wait out the winter.

Buds that will be some of the first awakenings of spring. Buds that paint the woods, in early April, a soft butter yellow. A soft wash that stirs my curiosity.

Buds that become blossoms. Blossoms that open before there are any thoughts of leaves. Blossoms of butter yellow in the black, gray and brown woods. No hint of any green.

Blossoms that resemble Sassafras blooms, but arrive a couple weeks earlier. Blossoms that will become berries on the female shrubs. The Spicebush is a shrub that is either male or female (the term for this is dioecious). The berries are only produced on the female shrubs. Berries that will again appear on the shrubs, as summer turns to fall. As the woods are shutting down.

Smooth Sumac

Just a couple weeks ago, some of the bushes along my woodland edges were abuzz with pollinator activity. The flowers of Smooth Sumac, Rhus glabra, were the magnet.

Butterflies, including this Red-banded Hairstreak, Calycopis cecrops, were part of the crowd.

Honey Bees, gathering nectar, to help some bee keeper with his honey supply were also attracted. And so many other insects. Sweat bees, wasps. Too many to identify or list here! Believe me, Abuzz!

Smooth Sumac is a dioecious plant, meaning that male and female flowers appear on separate bushes.

There are many references to a lemonade being made from the berries. Call me chicken, but I’m not going to experiment, particularly because I am allergic to nuts and the thought that this shrub is in the cashew family (Anacardiaceae) is warning enough for me.

Autumn brings scarlet to the sawtooth edged leaves.

The bushes form dense colonies, by means of root suckers, and are easily spotted along the roadsides in many areas, in the fall, thanks to the brilliant red foliage.

The berries are an emergency food for many, many song birds through the winter.

This Yellow-shafted Flicker, or Northern Flicker, Colaptes auratus, is glad to have the emergency supply. I took this photograph during a heavy snow, back in February, 2010.

And as the seasons roll along, winter turns to spring. The compound leaves sprout, looking like ferns as they unfold. And the whole cycle repeats itself.