Butterflies & Moths
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Lovely, dark and deep
I took the girls to a preserve yesterday that we haven’t been to in over a year. It contains a gorge and an old growth forest I think of as the Ent Woods. Some of the trees are enormous, and generally speaking it has a dim, brooding air about it.
An old stone bridge spans a stream that runs steeply downhill over a shale bed.
The girls (and the dog) played in the stream while I sat along the edge, watching some chipmunks playing on the steep, mossy far bank, listening to what might have been a grouse ticking somewhere, hearing a warbler I never saw, and admiring the wildflowers growing nearby.
Bird’s eye speedwell 
Trillium 
Trillium 
Wild geranium 
Forget-me-not 
Forget-me-not, pink version? 
As the girls played, I noticed they were being overseen by a tree that looked like it had a face. Maybe it’s an ent…
As I listened to the girls, it occurred to me to wonder whether they would be better off doing something more organized with other children. Are all these hours outside really what they need? It struck me that at some level I’m trying to give them something I had as a child: time to play in the woods. There were woods behind my house growing up, and a creek too. My memories of childhood involve more of the woods than of experiences with other kids. I caught toads, played with my plastic horses out there, and often found clumps of trees or streamside nooks that seemed like natural playhouses. Once, I remember coming home to a spanking; I’d been sitting by the creek not far from the house, daydreaming, while apparently my mother had been calling and calling for me. She was worried; I’d never heard a thing over the happy sounds of the flowing water.
I didn’t know as much about nature as my daughters do. They know the names and sounds of many birds — over 100 already. They know the names of more trees than I did, and what kinds of creatures thrive on the old decaying logs lying along the stream. And unlike me, who in the more innocent era of my childhood spent many hours alone in the woods, they are always attended by a parent — granted, one who tries to become invisible while keeping them in view, but one who’s there just the same, my mace and cell phone safely stored in my camera case, ready to take on any potential sinister creatures who come our way. (None ever have.)
I think that there are great advantages to these experiences. The natural knowledge they’re accumulating. The ability to be alive and interested and imaginative without props. The wealth of shared memories. The love for wild places that will mature into what Aldo Leopold called a land ethic. And then there is what I can only think of as the strengthening, quieting effect of spending time in a natural setting. Generally speaking, it’s never a bad thing to have opportunity not just to live, but to reflect on one’s living. That may be where the sense of self is most formed.
Yet spending time this way is a choice against other ways of spending it, many of them involving more structure and social interaction. Every now and then I stop to wonder whether we’re getting the balance right. I hope so. I don’t want something that’s so good in so many ways to end up isolating.
On our way out, we heard occasional bursts of birdsong. These woods are so dense, and cover so many acres, that the birds aren’t concentrated in flocks that can be easily seen. We didn’t see a blackburnian warbler, as I’d hoped we would. But we saw a black-throated green warbler, a chestnut-sided, a catbird, a few towhees, a Baltimore oriole, several robins, and, finally, a new bird:
Blue-headed vireo It was hawking insects like a phoebe, and singing.
We also saw this battered mourning cloak butterfly sunning itself.
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Celebrating Seeing
My daughters and I watched this pileated woodpecker in our back yard as we were eating lunch the other day. She captivated us for several minutes.
No sooner had she flown away than a rabbit appeared, gathering up mouthfuls of grass and leaf litter and hopping behind some trees to pad her nest. Now we know where to look for baby rabbits.
On the whole, this raised awareness of the creatures living all around us is the biggest plus of nature study. Who needs television if you have a window? Who needs computer games if you have eyes? The interest is simply there; all that’s needed is a very little effort to cultivate awareness.
It’s not always easy to be aware, though. Sometimes it brings sorrow. This year I notice several different areas around where bulldozers have cleared space for some kind of development, and every one of them will have an impact on birds or other creatures that lived in those spaces. Where will they go? And how much more space do humans need to take over, mow down, dig up?
Even something like Habitat for Humanity (which recently produced a house on an empty lot nearby) gives me pause these days. It sounds so positive. And it is positive to give someone an opportunity to help build their own home. But why take up new space to do it? Why not redesign an existing building standing empty? Every city has more than enough houses already, more than enough retail buildings and factory spaces. Why not use and re-use these spaces, rather than relentlessly sprawling outward like some seeping toxic spill?
Oh well… enough of the lament. Suffice it to say that I wish we gave more thought such matters before mowing down the bushes and trees to construct new buildings. Awareness — the ability simply to pay attention to what’s around you, wherever you are — is where an environmental ethic begins. Not legislation or speech-making. Opened eyes.
Speaking of which, I have seen many interesting sights of late that I haven’t recorded here, and what follows will be a long column of wonders.
Starting with an oven bird! I’ve heard these leaf-like thrushes many times calling from the forest floor, but never have I been fortunate enough to actually see one till this past weekend, on an early morning walk.
He was having a territorial squabble with another one nearby. The woods were full of them! Here, he’s standing on the ruin of an old nesting box.
At a nearby pond, we’ve seen the first of the green herons…
We’ve seen geese nesting…
…and geese newly hatched.
As I stood watching, I noticed movement from one grass tussock to the next. Meadow mice were darting like lightning from hole to hole, right out in the marsh. They’re the color of dust, but otherwise they remind me a lot of hamsters.
Water snakes abounded. None of them looked big enough to eat a mouse, but the frogs and wogs must be on the run.
I think this tiny butterfly is a silvery blue. Its wings are only about a centimeter wide. The meadow was studded with them; I also saw one bright orange butterfly too elusive to photograph.
The chipmunks are coming out of hiding — well, they’re awake. Some are still hiding.
Find that chipmunk Others look like woodland mariners sailing deadwood ships.
Happily, my daughter and I saw our first rose-breasted grosbeaks the other morning!
Mr Grosbeak 
Mrs Grosbeak There were other birds chorusing all around, including song sparrows…
…and yellow warblers.
It’s not every day that you get tracked by police while bird watching, but it happened the morning we saw these warblers. My daughter turned around, gasped, and said, “A police car!” We saw an officer circling our parked car and hurried back, fearing we’d broken some parking rule. “Oh, I was going to have her track you,” he greeted us, emerging from behind the car with a large police dog. Turns out he just saw our car and decided to take the opportunity to do some training!
There are several nests we’ve been keeping an eye on. We were thrilled to discover a red-tailed hawk nest in a spot we pass often, but it’s not terribly photographable. Still, as the nestlings grow and begin flappercizing, maybe we’ll get some better views (and pictures).
The other day, we were looking at a red-winged blackbird atop this snag when we noticed a tree swallow in a nest cavity beneath him.
Last but not least, the chickadees must have a few nestlings in this nest box outside our front window, because the parent birds have been active, flying to and fro and apparently feeding young.
It’s a great time of year for being outside. Here in the northeast the sense of release from the grip of winter seems so strong and so welcome.
Even our domestic animals like to get out and smell the flowers!
Whisper -
And so it begins
Last year, we got seriously into monarch caterpillar observation. I wrote about it here.
This year, I’ve seen a few caterpillars, but we’ve held off on bringing any home, thinking we’d wait till they get bigger. It makes for easier maintenance. But since we’re seeing far fewer than last year at this time, and since there’s no guarantee the little ones will be there if we wait and go back, I yielded last night to Younger Daughter’s pleas and brought this little fellow home. It’s quite sluggish; I think it may be ready to shed this skin.
*Edited to add: I wrote about the conclusion of this story at my other blog, here and here.
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Summer sightings
Today on the way out of a park, Younger Daughter and I stopped to scrape a dead oriole off the road and place it in a shady bed of clover off to the side. It was our small acknowledgment of beauty utterly wasted.
But as Ma in the Little House books is fond of saying, there’s no loss without some small gain. Glancing up as we walked back to the car, we spotted some cliff swallow nests on the bridge over the river.
There were several of them along the bridge’s eaves. We’ll have fun watching their story unfold.
Younger Daughter loves streams, and while she played in the water I puttered on the edge with my camera.
A meadow fritillary, I think — about 2 inches across with wings open. 
One of several watchful song sparrows. 
I believe this is mayweed, based on the leaves thin “yarrow-like” leaves. All in all a very nice time together. Younger Daughter caught minnows and threw rocks for the dog while I wandered and sweated. I’m not at my best when it’s in the nineties out, but I felt rewarded by these beauties.
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Question mark butterfly
The two little white markings on the dead-leaf-like underside of the wing are what give this butterfly its name. It’s quite beautiful with its wings spread.
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Serenity Wood
I took a walk today in a favorite place called the Serenity Wood. It was very hot, and I saw many things as I explored woods and meadows: yellow-throats, house wrens, an eastern towhee, a Baltimore oriole. There were deer tracks, coyote tracks, and raccoon tracks in the mud. Robins and sparrows and yellow warblers and chestnut-sided warblers hopped among the leaves. And there were catbirds — always catbirds.
I heard a brown thrasher at one point, and later on I thought this bird, startled up out of the grass beside the trail, was a thrasher. But it was quiet, and it had a shorter tail. I think it was a wood thrush, nesting in the grass. I was delighted to make her acquaintance!
*Edited to add: I’m thinking it may be more likely that this is a hermit thrush, because of the striping on the throat. Very pleased to meet this beautiful songster!
This tiny pearl crescent butterfly was a welcome sight too. Exquisite.
Not everyone is so picturesque, of course. And though the woods were full of noise — squeaking chipmunks, an ovenbird, red-eyed vireos, rustling leaves — some were in a more quiet, meditative mood.
He owes me a smile for not stepping on him as he lay there in the middle of the trail. No gratitude. (It must be confessed: I like toads. As a child I would spend whole afternoons collecting them in coffee cans, then let them all go at the end of the day. I was certain they recognized me as their benefactress.)
I saw the fawn I had the close encounter with last week, too. It might have been a different one, but I prefer to think it’s the same one, developing on schedule. Unbeknownst to me, I was standing right next to it in the trail; it was in the long grass beside me. I didn’t realize it till I gave up on trying to take a picture of the towhee, and took a step. The little fawn thrashed to its feet and disappeared into the brush with a flick of its tail. I was glad… I want it to know enough to run from strange critters like humans.
It was a nice, leisurely walk — perfect outing for a Sunday afternoon.
Yellow-striped hunter -
Phlox Feast
Yesterday at my parents’ house, the Eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies were having a convention. It seemed like every breeze carried in a few of these air-sailors. They were enjoying the phlox growing at the edges of the yard.
When I walked over to snap a few pictures, I discovered several smaller butterflies floating around like confetti.
White-striped black moth 
Little wood satyr 
A skipper of some kind... I wish I’d been there a few nights earlier, when Dad had seen a luna moth. Someday.
