Congaree Butterfly Count (and a bonus)

Saturday, June 26th was the annual NABA.org butterfly count @ Congaree National Park - http://www.nps.gov/cong/index.htm

This is the 3rd count in which we've (my daughter Emily & I) participated and the 4th year we've attended a butterfly event @ Congaree.

The park has experienced a great deal of stormy weather over the last couple of weeks, culminating in a gully-washer on Friday, June 25th.  This always bodes poorly for a butterfly count as the little critters take a while to dry out and recover.  It's especially noticeable in the mornings when we normally explore and this year we experienced the fewest species ( 8 ) as well as the fewest number of actual specimens (32).  I haven't heard the final count #'s from the other two groups as they were out until well into the afternoon and we had to head back toward home just after lunch.

I did capture a couple of pics of species I had yet to photograph, although I really need to upgrade some lenses to get better shots in certain situations.  I found myself with the 20D and the 70-200 in my hands almost the entire time.  All the pics have fill-flash (ETTL w/ minus 1/3 or minus 2/3's FEV) except the bonus find.

The one I really hoped to get a good picture of is a Roadside Lacewing Skipper and we did find a couple of specimens in a clearing.  Here's the best shot I got:



We saw quite a few Appalachian Browns but the overcast skies and the forest canopy made it extremely difficult to get great pics of them. 

I tried anyways:



The stars of our count were the Pearly Eye butterflies - Creole's & Southerns (very slight differences) - I did not get a good picture at all of a Southern Pearly Eye, but I managed a couple of halfway decent shots of the Creole's.  Here's one (heavily cropped):



We saw a couple Horace's Duskywings, a single Hackberry Emperor, a single Zarruco's Duskywing, and a couple of Pearl Crescent's (the only non-brown butterfly of the count for our group).

One of the treats @ Congaree is the rich biodiversity present in an old-growth swamp.  They have some national and state record trees in the park including the largest known Loblolly Pine in the U.S. @ 137 ft tall and nearly 15 ft in circumference!  We had the pleasure of hearing and then seeing a fledgling Barred Owl about 45-50 feet off the trail:



Overall, it was a great time and we look forward to the count in September!

A Father's Day Weekend to Remember

I had one of the most enjoyable and memorable Father's Day Weekends in a long time.  I have the greatest kids who tolerate my idiosyncrasies, wild-hare ideas, and all around off-the-wall plans with grace and aplomb.

They know how much I love the mountains.  They know how much I love the mornings.  They know how much I love to make their Mom smile and how much I treasure the time I have with them.

So, they got up slightly after 0500 Saturday morning for a road trip.  Breakfast in the minivan, the hum of the wheels, and the waking of the dawn across highways & foothills have become family traditions for them.

This was not their first trip to the berry farm, just the first one in a couple of years.  They listened attentively to stories of their Mom picking red raspberries at her grandparents' houses in Indiana - lying on her back under the bushes, gorging herself with a treat that would prove itself a true rarity later in life.  They hear all about the scratches on their arms from reaching through the brambles and just how much she treasures those times.

We arrive at the farm to find no one there, which is very odd for a morning and even more so for a Saturday morning.

The scenery was like this:

So, we wandered around for a few minutes looking at flowers and scouting out the best berry-picking place, all the while my daughter is combing the cabbage patch looking for Cabbage White caterpillars (she collected seven, most of which are becoming chrysalii on our kitchen counter) and then lit out in earnest search of these:

During most activities such as these, there are little distractions along the way . . .

But in the end we had a little more than a gallon of ripe black raspberries for the enjoyment of the family, including my wife's 96 yr old grandmother (the one under who's bushes the instigator of this endeavor used to gorge and gouge herself with reckless abandon).

We also taught the boys how to harvest rhubarb . . .

Which is another of those non-Southern delicacies to which I was introduced upon meeting my wife's extended family.

I have no idea how my daughter missed this or where she went, but she came back with an elderly couple in tow and searching for the rhubarb.  The wife was on an Oxygen cannula and puffing to beat the band, but she was determined to pick herself some rhubarb!

We weighed our produce, found an envelope and left our money by the phone (I certainly hope the owners found it because there was still nobody around!) and climbed into the van.

We proceeded from there up the mountain to the Pisgah National Forest and the fish hatchery (again, no fly rod because I would have no more pictures to share, only fish tales!) and re-introduced the kids to the nature walk and a few other fun things . .

Quite the surprise for all of us to discover the cultivated red raspberries and we each managed a handful from the bushes spread about the gardens.

From there it was further up to Sliding Rock, because the kids had never been.

They had no idea what they were in for . . .

Forty-six degree water in the plunge pool at the bottom.  Enough to take your breath away and make you run for sunshine!

This would be my oldest son trying to find his way to the surface to inhale WARM air!

and this would be my daughter & I just after impact - still in shock!

After 3 or 4 trips down the falls, the crowds got stupidly long (45 minute wait) so we decided an early picnic lunch would be just the ticket.

Back down the mountain we lolled until we found one parking space left at a roadside spot and indulged in Peach Punch, Pastrami, Smoked Cheddar, grapes, carrots, and a few other goodies before finding a lifetime find at our feet!

This is a Diana Fritillary, which is a native, albeit seldom seen, in the Western NC & SC woodlands.

The pic is a little out of focus due to the fact that I had a very few seconds to capture it and the wrong lens for the task.

From there it was over to the river again to skip rocks . . .

and get a certain camera-shy son's attention by "gently setting" a rather large stone right next to him . . . from about 25 feet away!

It worked!

What can I say?  He's impossible to photograph head-on!

And he didn't get nearly as wet as when his sister dropped an even bigger splash bomb right in his face as he was bending over searching for "the perfect skipping stone".

I'm still upset that I missed that shot.  He had water dripping off his glasses and she had the biggest grin on her face I've seen in a very long while!

We wound down with a brief conversation riverside about sibling relationships and a photo of one of the hundreds of Eastern Tiger Swallowtails we'd seen throughout the day:

When we pulled out of the parking lot it was 77 degrees and it was already 2 o'clock!  

By the time we got home, it was 94!

Sunday afternoon held the promise of a nap and then a jaunt through our neighbors' woods down to "The Big Creek" as the kids call it.  

I'm not much for hiking through the woods in flip-flops, but this trip was worth it.

We explored about 1/2 mile (easily) upstream and down, climbing over downfalls and generally having a blast.

We saw hundreds of Ebony Jewelwing damselflies along both the feeder creek (that runs behind our pond) and "The Big Creek". 

I made the kids promise to take me "creek exploring" as often as possible for the rest of my life, with a once/year minimum until the point that they needed a wheel chair to get me to the creek.

They thought I was a little nuts at first (which I probably am), but readily agreed and went on playing.

Me, I had the best Father's Day I can remember!

Butterfly adventures!

Butterflies are my daughter's passion.

She's eleven and knows more about them than I can imagine.  She's taught me tons about them and as a result we've gotten involved with a couple of organizations geared toward educating, conserving, and enjoying butterflies.


NABA.org holds organized counts throughout the season(s) with one big push around the 4th of July (give or take a week).  We have been able to participate in a few of them, most notably the one held @ Congaree National Park each summer.  The next one happens the 26th of June and we're planning to be there again!

There are likely counts in your area, so check out their maps page to see what's around.

There are also a lot of photographic opportunities for all sorts of nature shots on these walks - from butterflies and other sorts of insects to flowers to birds and anything else around.

I stick most of my butterfly pictures into one set on my flickr.com page

If you haven't seen this, you should . . .

I don't post links to other "stuff" too often, but I spent 5+ years working in an Emergency Room dealing with the families of traumatic injury. 

Most of them were automobile crashes.

This reminds me why I buckle up everytime I get in a vehicle.

http://www.embracethis.co.uk/

Weekend away and making memories

Very seldom do we get away.

Even less seldom do we take a Sunday-Monday getaway.

And even less seldom does that happen without the critters kids.

This past Sunday-Monday was one of those even less and even-less, less seldom times.

We took off early Sunday morning after making certain the kids were up & moving so the oldest could drive them to church.

Then, we headed to borrow a convertible from my parents.  The top was already down when we got there and pretty much stayed down until we parked it for the day in Brevard, NC.

Flat Rock (the bakery, where else?) for a breakfast snack (ginger lemon scone and a sticky bun with coffee and tea!) then tooled down 64 towards Brevard and took a short detour to Dupont State Forest.  The parking lot for Hooker Falls (alternate link on my Flickr page here ) was FULL, so we took a little walk over to and around Lake Imaging.  Not what I expected, but very quaint and relaxing, in a delightfully surprising sort of way.

Impending doom looked certain in the clouds, but we skirted around the thunderheads and went the back fun way to Brevard on our quest for brunch at the Square Root.

We meandered around downtown for a while before heading over to The Red House Inn and parked the convertible for the rest of the day.

The Cottage is a nifty little place that has been re-crafted from an older building adjacent to the main house and has a great little rocking chair back porch on which to relax.

When one wanders, it's amazing what one finds.

I love shadows and dappled sunlight, even on sidewalks.

Back to the Inn for a relaxing evening after dinner and up to see the sights for a few minutes before an amazing breakfast Monday morning!

They have this cool little raised garden bed in the side yard.  It has a healthy crop of herbs.

It was the kind of day when the front door was open more than it was closed - just a great, breezy day with low humidity (yes, it does happen on very rare occasion in June!) which quickly sped us over to see if we could scrounge up a few black raspberries even though we figured it was a wee bit early in the season.

It was, but we managed to just cover the bottom of the bucket as well as scurry away with about 4 lbs of fresh rhubarb!

Then, back to the Inn for some parting shots and check-out (11-ish!)

and over to 276 to explore up on the Blue Ridge Parkway - which is closed, btw, from the Pisgah Inn North towards Asheville due to a rock slide.

We did find this Variegated Fritillary at the Pisgah National Forest Ranger Station and Visitor's Center

where we also were offered to trade vehicles - I had to politely inform the couple that my father might be displeased if I came home with a Honda Odyssey in exchange for his hot rod.

We headed over to Saluda to check out some places neither of us had been in several years and then I introduced my sweetie to the Poinsett Bridge.  She'd never been there, which surprised me.  We soaked our toes in the water and watch some Tiger Swallowtail butterflies mineraling/puddling streamside before grabbing a quick shot of the most colorful Gothic arch I've ever seen

and then heading towards TR and a delicious dinner of Pad See-U from Thaicoon for a picnic dinner at my alma mater before trading the convertible for Chrysleritis once again.

Home in time to hug the kids and enjoy a glass of wine along with some Three Cheese & Basil bread from the bakery!

We definitely need to do these sort of trips more often.

Matter of fact, she's already planning the next one . . .