Working the Blossoms

A yellow beauty gets ready to move on.

There has not been as many this year.  Nor have they arrived as early as in prior seasons.  But they finally arrived:  first the bees, then the butterflies.  The former like both our back and front yard gardens. 

The butterflies, though, prefer the front yard where they find an abundance of fragrant Russian Sage blooms complemented by an assortment of colorful Buddleia, commonly known as butterfly bushes.

Both flying species are tireless and diligent workers, showing up early and not retiring until sunset.  Don’t know where they get all that energy!  But the season is short and, as the old farmer’s saying goes, “Make hay while the sun shines.”

Sum. . . Sum. . . Summertime!

Coming in for a landing.

RANDOM MUSINGS:  It’s one of those times when it’s necessary to put aside – if  only briefly – the daily cares of life and to take at least a modicum of respite to smell the roses; or, as in my case, to observe the workings of nature’s winged creatures.

The very hot weather that is keeping so many of us indoors in air-conditioned comfort has also prompted hordes of others to head to the Jersey shore:  Everybody has his or her own preferred way of dealing with escaping this brutal heat.

Black Beauty Makes Her Second Visit

The photograph shows Black Beauty making her second verified appearance in our garden. She’s the same visitor that Priscille had spotted for the first time a few days ago.

On Tuesday, when we prepared to leave the house around 10:00 AM, I saw from the distance what appeared to be our new guest, quickly fetched my camera from its ready-to-go location, positioned myself within the Buddleias (butterfly bush) and began to shoot. The profusion of insects swarming all over those cone-shaped flowers made an attractive photographic target.

Later on around mid-day when I momentarily ventured out to check, there wasn’t a butterfly to be seen. What’s more, nary a bee was buzzing about the Russian Sage, a blue-flowered deer-resistant plant which usually attracts dozens of those little yellow and black workers.

It’s so hot out that even the insects seem to want a respite from the blistering mid-day heat. The weather is the boss.

Thanks for reading. Stay cool and take care of yourselves.

PHOTO:  by Dick Bergeron, July 6, 2010

Bridgewater Beauties

When she came to pay a visit yesterday, she must have liked the sweet nectar of the Buddleia plants, because she came back today with three of her friends. I had been out watering the planting beds, when I noticed all four butterflies settling down on one of the Buddleias in the yard.

If you want to freeze a butterfly in a picture, you have to be patient yet have to move quickly, because it won’t stay in one place very long. However, if there are enough plants to attract them in your flower beds, butterflies will tend to flutter from bush to bush, remaining in the same area long enough for you to create a satisfactory number of photos.

I was able to freeze-frame the first butterfly alone (see photo), and to also capture the other three lined up on another Buddleia (see second photo). It was a stroke of luck to find so many at one time concentrated within shooting distance.

Later on, after I had finished my work and was away from the yard, Priscille told me that she spotted another newcomer, a largely black one. I’ll be on the lookout for this newbie, and if I’m lucky, record her image as well.

Hopefully, dear readers you are all enjoying a sane, healthy, and joyous 4th of July weekend. We live in a great country, don’t you think, despite all of the self-deprecating negativity about the USA that infects too many: Don’t buy any of it, even if it emanates from Washington.

Photo:  by Dick Bergeron, July 3, 2010

Consider the Butterfly

The first butterfly of the season appeared in our garden on Monday, flying from flower to flower on the Buddleia (butterfly) bushes in search of nectar. It was a long-anticipated visit. I had been outdoors on-and-off-again this spring getting the garden in shape.

My work was well rewarded. I have many varieties of plants, most of them deer-resistant, and the Buddleia is one of those. When the colorful visitor dropped by this week, I reached for my Kodak digital camera, returned to the garden, and captured several photos of her at work. Buddleias are a magnet for butterflies and bees.

I couldn’t help but to admire the resolve with which this apparently simple creature went about its work. It was very breezy on Monday but, despite the wind resistance offered by that beauty’s large wings as it flew from bloom to bloom, it never once lost its grip on the flowers upon which it settled to gather its food.

The butterfly continued on its chores independently, making do with what nature provided for it; leaving its surroundings intact, with no visible traces of its visit.

Somehow, I think that there is a lesson being delivered to us humans by that beautiful and diligent member of nature.

If you are endowed with the ability for it, work; don’t rely on others to do in life what you should be doing for yourself. Respect your surroundings; we didn’t create them – they were provided free-of-charge for our benefit by a  Force which we can respect, but which we will never quite fathom this side of The Great Divide.

That’s a pretty tough prescription for us tough-as-nails New Jerseyans to swallow – at least that’s what we think. But even butterflies can prosper in The Garden State.

Note:  Photo by Dick Bergeron, 6-28-2010

The Last Butterfly of Summer

With all of the nonsense going on in Washington D.C. and New Jersey politics these days, I wasn’t mentally up to filling this space with more of the same – will save commentary on that for some other day.

Instead, I thought I’d share with you one of dozens of snapshots that I was lucky enough to have taken in mid-August of this year.

When we came back from our New Hampshire lakeside vacation, we encountered the damage inflicted on our neighborhood in Bridgewater after it was struck by a microburst of wind that brought down literally tons of trees. The big oak in our front yard was lucky to have survived, but it needed some major trimming to bring it back from the brink.

When the tree experts arrived and began their work, I decided to take my digital camera out to the front yard to record the event. As an unexpected bonus, I noticed the butterflies that were being attracted to our garden by the wayside.

That’s when I changed priorities and concentrated my camera on capturing images of these delightfully friendly creatures of the summer. If you’re careful, quiet, and move slowly, you can get your camera very close to a butterfly – easily two feet, even closer.

One of the startlingly revealing facts about nature is its insistence on reminding us that we are merely a part of it, despite the human tendency to think that we are its ultimate product. This is not to degrade the exponential progression of mankind or the value of the human soul, just a cautionary signal that our future is short and our task, heavy.