Common Buttonbush along the Little Miami River...

A few weeks ago Matty and I went up to Spring Valley Wildlife Area along the Little Miami River with our sketchbooks. We spent the afternoon rambling about, sketching whatever we saw. When we came across a stand of Common Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), we stopped and studied the tree and its blossoms, noting that the leaves occurred in whorls of three, and the "honey bell" was made of hundreds of tiny blossoms...

Common Buttonbush flower ball, also called a honey bell, dangles from a stem and looks a lot like a firework display, a starburst...or in a less romantic view, a pin cushion! 

Common Buttonbush is native to Ohio. It loves water and swampy areas, and true to form, we found a large colony hugging the edge of the lake and another in a low boggy area beside the lake, just steps from the Little Miami River. The flower balls were intensely fragrant, which is where it gets its nickname "honey bell" or "honey-ball," and butterflies were everywhere...

A female dark morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) nectars on a Buttonbush flower-ball (inflorescence). The butterfly uses its proboscis to sip nectar from each tiny perfect flower and pollinates the florets in the process. 

Two Silver-spotted Skippers (Epargyreus clarus) cling to the pin cushion for a sip of nectar as well. The long, projecting styles of each perfect flower in the inflorescence create the pin-like, starburst look.

The cranberry red stems of a Common Buttonbush shrub are almost as striking as its flowers. Its leaves have both a three-stemmed whorled arrangement (often near the flower) and an opposite arrangement elsewhere on the shrub.

Before the inflorescence bursts open, the tiny flowers (florets) are encased in tight mint-green buds (sepals). Here the flowers are just starting to open, but you can still see remnants of some of the buds and the light-green color.

After the flower petals have fallen away, little ball-shaped seed heads remain. Some will hold on through the autumn and winter. Each tiny flower in the inflorescence produces two seeds called nutlets. Often buttonbush trees grow at the edge of ponds, lakes, streams and rivers (or even in the water), so when the nutlets ripen and tumble out, they float and are dispersed by the currents. Wood Ducks, Mallards, teal, and other waterfowl like to eat the nutlets.  

For more information on the Common Buttonbush, including its historical use as a quinine substitute for malaria, look in "The Book of Swamp and Bog; Trees, Shrubs, and Wildflowers of Eastern Freshwater Wetlands," by John Eastman, pgs 34-37. For an online resource, click here for a link to The Hilton Pond Center's website, or here for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry website.

What is an inflorescence?
When you look closely at a Buttonbush flower you'll notice it's a collection of hundreds of tiny flowers, called florets. Each one of the florets in the collection is a "perfect flower," which means it has a pistil (stigma, style and ovary) and stamens (anther and filament). The collection or grouping of florets is called an inflorescence. Common flowers with inflorescences are sunflowers and all the flowers in the daisy family. Click here for a past post called "Hummingbirds and sunflowers" that describes an inflorescence in more detail.

A Red Admiral at a sap flow...

A striking Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) butterfly joined the ash tree sap flow gang last week, but he was not having an easy time of it. Three large ants kept creeping in and trying to climb up his proboscis or his legs, but worse was a pesky little wasp that kept attacking him by rattling around in his wings. The butterfly did not seem to mind the ants, but he definitely did not like the wasp touching him and would become agitated and shake him away...

A Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) butterfly shares a sap flow on our ash tree with an ant. 

Just like Monarch butterflies, who are visitors to our area and undergo seasonal migration, so too do Red Admirals. We normally get to see Red Admirals on the wing from late April through early October. This year, though, they arrived a little earlier. I saw a few in late March, and I've seen much higher numbers of them all season. It's been a stellar year for the Red Admirals! I didn't know much about Red Admiral migration, so I checked my books but didn't find much. After a quick internet search, I found admirals do not overwinter here because they cannot survive cold winters. Some individuals from the fall generation migrate south to winter in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and other southern states, but not all, and research is still needed on why some stay. Mostly North America is recolonized each spring by butterflies coming up from the south (click here and here). It always amazes me that creatures seemingly so fragile can undertake these massive migrations and survive.

The profile of a Red Admiral butterfly with an extended proboscis. 

"Pesky wasp...surely, the devil with wings," seemed to be the thoughts of this Red Admiral butterfly. Here the butterfly and the ant were watching the wasp carefully. When it would come around, the butterfly would curl up his proboscis and prepare for the attack. It was interesting to watch.

...peace and quiet again. When the wasp would give up and fly away, the butterfly would go back to feeding on the tree sap. 

...eventually the Admiral had enough and flew off to another branch to find an unoccupied sap flow. The dorsal view of this butterfly is gorgeous. Bright orange-red stripes and white bars stand out easily against the dark brown-black background. 

p.s.
No wonder I saw so many Red Admirals this season. It was an irruption year. The butterflies did very well overwintering in the south, and the extra mild spring helped usher them in during their northward migration. For more accounts, click here for a post titled, "Red Admiral Invasion," by Jim McCormac from Ohio Birds and Biodiversity, and here for an article titled, "Naboko's Favorite Butterfly Invades NYC (and Other Places)," from the Gothamist.

A Mourning Cloak butterfly sips sap from our dying ash tree...

In our backyard we have a huge weeping willow tree and several birches, so I always hoped Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) butterflies would show up. Both of these tree species are host plants for the butterflies, but it took our dying ash tree to finally lure the beautiful butterflies in...

A Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) butterfly sips from a sap flow on our ash tree. Emerald Ash Borers have left their D-shaped holes all over our tree, and sap flows are everywhere. The only (short-lived) benefit of the infestation is an abundance of butterflies feasting on the sap, especially butterflies I don't normally see in our backyard, such as this Mourning Cloak. (Click here for an older post on the Emerald Ash Borer.)

I photographed this Mourning Cloak butterfly at about 4:30 in the afternoon. The sun was bright and washed out the butterfly's color. Here the butterfly appears to be trimmed in white, but really the edge is yellow. The bright light also brought out a reddish cast on the wings, but when not in bright light, the dorsal side of the butterfly looks more like a dark brown or velvety black. Against the black, the border is noticeably more yellow. The same shade of iridescent blue spots show in dark or bright light. 

Morning Cloak butterflies are called "brush-footed butterflies" or "four-footed butterflies" (family Nymphalidae). They have six legs like any other insect, but you can only see four of the legs. The other two are very small and resemble brushes. They are tucked up underneath the butterfly's "chin," and are not used for walking or perching. To read a little more about brush-footed butterflies, click here.

The ventral side of the Mourning Cloak butterfly looks wrinkled and bark-like. The dark, black color helps it blend into the tree bark. Mourning Cloaks love tree sap, so it's great camouflage. Additionally, this photo clearly shows how the butterfly looks like it only has four legs. The last two legs are small and brush-like, and make the butterfly look like it always needs a shave! 

The beautiful dorsal markings of a Mourning Cloak butterfly

Mourning Cloak butterflies undergo aestivation—a type of hibernation sometimes called "summer sleep." Mourning Cloaks like cooler temps. In the summer during hot and dry weather, the butterflies will go into aestivation and do not resume feeding until the cooler temperatures of fall return. Saturday was our first cool day of the season. Rain on Friday pushed in a much-needed cool front, and two Mourning Cloaks took to the wing on Saturday in our yard. (Source: "The Life Cycles of Butterflies," by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards, pg 138.)

A Mourning Cloak butterfly tucks itself up into a cedar tree for the evening. I was surprised as I watched it land on the tree and then slowly crawl deeper and deeper into it. By the time it was all the way tucked in, I couldn't see it anymore. Mourning Cloaks are one of the longest-lived butterflies in Ohio (can live 8-10 months). They overwinter here by hibernating through the winter. I'll have to keep my eye on this tree. It is well protected and would be an ideal place to hibernate.

In the spring, Mourning Cloaks are one of the first butterflies to take flight, and I have seen them flitting on sunny March days when snow is still on the ground! Since they are dark, they bask in the sun to raise their body temperatures for flight. They are solar powered on those cold days! Being sap lovers instead of flower nectar lovers helps these butterflies because they have a ready food source as soon as the sap starts to flow. Mourning Cloaks also love to feed off rotting fruit. This summer, I started a little area in my "wild patch" part of the yard where I would dump fruit that had started to turn before we could eat it. I put it out there for the hummingbirds, because I know they love to nab fruit flies from the air, but maybe the little fruit dump helped to lure these butterflies in too.

Butterflies and a hummingbird moth at Mt. Airy Forest...

I visited Mt. Airy Forest in Cincinnati last week. It's the first time I've been there since I was a kid. It's a lovely park with a beautiful arboretum. I started my visit at the treehouse and then headed over to the arboretum. Butterflies were everywhere, and a Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird moth made an appearance too...

A Cabbage White butterfly (Pieris rapae) sips nectar in the midday sun at the Mt. Airy Forest arboretum.

From a distance, Cabbage Whites may appear a bit dull, but up close they have beautiful wings decorated in subtle shades of yellow on white. Their eyes sparkle in soft tones of turquoise and green. The dark spots on their wings make it easy to identify them. Cabbage Whites are one of our most recognizable and common butterflies. You can find them just about anywhere, and they fly both early and late in the season. Introduced from Europe around 1860, they have spread to most of North America. Because of their long flying season and their preference of cultivated garden plants (i.e., cabbages, mustards, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and radishes) as their host plants, they are often considered garden pests. (Source: "Butterflies of Ohio," by Jaret C. Daniels.)

A Cabbage White Butterfly takes flight. 
Although Cabbage Whites are slower moving than other butterflies, they still take to the wing at the wrong time when being photographed... 

A Cabbage White butterfly uses its proboscis to sip nectar.  

Recent studies at Clemson University in South Carolina show that a butterfly's proboscis is a "marvel of microfluidic design." Students and scientists there are studying the butterfly's feeding tube to learn more about micro-fluidity (the precise management of small amounts of fluid). They hope to create a microfluidic device to improve designs in products ranging from inkjet printers to "lab-on-a-chip" medical technologies. Previously, science assumed the proboscis worked like a drinking straw, but researchers at Clemson have found proboscis functionality is much more complex, and that the proboscis has "structures and properties that combine sponge-like capillary action with straw-like sucking." (Source: the Clemson University web site, here.)

Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth (Hemaris diffnis) at Mt. Airy Forest.

In our area there are two types of hummingbird moths. This fellow is a Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth (Hemaris diffinis). The other type is a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe). The two look a lot a like, but Snowberries are smaller and have a yellow face with a black mask. (Click here for an older post with photos of both types of hummingbird moths.)

The Natural Treasures of Ohio!

Mt. Airy Forest is one of the sites in the The Nature Conservancy's Natural Treasures of Ohio sweepstakes. If you go to Mt. Airy Forest, snap a photo of yourself at the super cool Everybody's Treehouse and submit it to enter to win a Honda Insight Hybrid (you have until August 8, 2012). Click here for more information.

Same butterfly, different styles

Painting 145. Yellow Butterfly on Red Geranium II

(Watercolor heightened with colored pencil, 10x7 Arches Cold Pressed 140 lb paper)

Painting 144. Yellow Butterfly on Red Geranium

(Oil Pastel, 9x12 Sennelier Oil Pastel paper)

Yesterday we had a taste of summer's heat before a cold front moved in and blew it all away, but the seed was planted, and warm sunshine and sunshine-y butterflies were in my imagination waiting to get out. I'm also taking a watercolor journaling class with Laure Ferlita called An Imaginary Trip to the Garden, and part of our assignment was butterflies. After I finished the journaling assignment, I took one of the extra photos and got my oil pastels out...intense color and a fleeting impression was what I had in mind, and painting 144, Yellow Butterfly on Red Geranium was a the result. After that, I created a very loose and impressionistic watercolor painting, then heightened it with colored pencil, which became painting 145...

A Common Buckeye Butterfly (Junonia coenia) nectaring on goldenrod

Common Buckeyes were abundant in the high meadow at VOA Park last weekend. I've never seen so many in one place. They spent most of their time nectaring on the bright yellow flower clusters on plumes of goldenrod.

A Common Buckeye Butterfly (Junonia coenia) nectaring on autumn-blooming goldenrod.

...the nectar from the goldenrod must have been especially sweet because the buckeyes were incredibly obliging, keeping their wings open for photographing.

...a little bee gets in on the nectar action...

Broken and tattered, but still beautiful...

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails at Fort Ancient

Yesterday I slipped out of work early and headed up to Fort Ancient. I was hoping to find a small flock of American Goldfinches as they worked the thistle-laced meadows looking for silky thistledown to take back to their nests, and I wasn't disappointed. As I walked toward the meadow next to the museum I could hear them, happy and chatty in their flight, but butterflies were everywhere, and their soft and gentle movements soon stole my attention away. From a distance, the butterflies looked fresh and new, but behind the camera lens I could see their wings were weathered, tattered and torn. (Click here for photos of goldfinches tugging out thistledown last September at Fort Ancient.)

The thin membrane of a butterfly's wings is covered in tiny scales arranged like shingles on a roof. Not built for long life, butterflies lose scales every day as their wings touch leaves, flower petals and other butterflies. Their color fades as the powdery scales drop away.

Even though the darks are a bit faded and chunks have been torn from its wings, this swallowtail's iridescent blue scales are still vibrant and beautiful. Two types of color show in a butterfly's scales--pigments, such as melanin, create black and other deep shades, while a microscopic open lattice structure creates reflective surfaces that form the iridescent blues and greens (similar to the structural color and pigment in hummingbird feathers).

This Eastern Tiger Swallowtail looks like it's been through a scrape or two. I wonder how many birds have nipped at its wings or how many buffeting winds it's dodged. Butterflies can fly with as much as 70% of their wings missing!

...since butterflies have no means of self-repair, they can become ragged within a few weeks and many species die within a month. (There are exceptions, some species overwinter in a dormant state and can live up to a year, and, of course, those amazing migrating Monarchs can live about eight months).

Every day of living shows in a butterfly's wings.

Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtails also come in a dimorphic dark form (shown in the upper right). Dark form females mimic Pipevine Swallowtails. While caterpillars, Pipevine Swallowtails munch on pipevine leaves, which are toxic. The result is a foul-tasting butterfly that birds avoid. (Click here for the Pipevine's story...)

A fresh Tiger Swallowtail (left) shares a thistle plant with two other swallowtails of varying ages. There were easily 30 or 40 Eastern Tiger Swallowtails in this little meadow, all nectaring on the thistle blossoms while goldfinches joined them here and there, plucking thistle down from spent flowers...

...and taking it back to their nests.

Clouded Sulphur on Ironweed...on Labor Day!

Rick and I headed up to Fort Ancient today for a bit of birding, but when we arrived we found locked gates...d'oh! We forgot Fort Ancient is close on National Holidays. We forgot last year too, pulling up to the same locked gates. Apparently we like to bird on Labor Day, especially at Fort Ancient. Hopefully next year we'll remember. Last year we ended up birding the Little Miami River where it runs 240 feet below Fort Ancient (click here for last year's Labor Day/chickadee post), but this year we opted for VOA Park with hopes of finding Eastern Meadowlarks and molting Bobolinks. Birds were a bit scarce in the parched fields today, but butterflies were all around, floating and drifting from flower to flower, nectaring and sunning in the heat of the day.

Yellow on purple...yum!

A Clouded Sulphur nectars on Ironweed.

...the sulphur takes flight.

I love the action in the wings as the sulphur prepares for flight.

I'm guessing this fellow is a Clouded Sulphur. He has a touch of orange on his wings, but he seems mostly yellow. Orange Sulphurs are also common here, and I read they often hybridize with Clouded Sulphurs.

...much of the meadow was parched and brown due to the intense heat and lack of rain we've had this summer, which made the bright yellow of the sulphur against the deep purple of the ironweed even more striking.

Matty points out an Eastern Meadowlark as Rick watches. They didn't know I was watching them instead of the bird!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day!

Pipevine Swallowtail Nectaring on Common Milkweed

Birding Hocking Hills in Southeastern Ohio
...continued from the Catbird post.
While watching a Gray Catbird on the Creekside Meadows trail in Clear Creek Metro Park, I saw this beautiful butterfly off in the distance. I kept my eye on him hoping he would come in a little closer. He came in a little, but mostly kept his distance, constantly moving from blossom to blossom and seeming wary.

A stunning Pipevine Swallowtail sips nectar from a

Common Milkweed blossom. I've got to plant this native

wildflower in my garden! I saw several species of

butterflies nectaring from its fragrant flowers. I also

saw Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Hummingbird

Clearwing Moths sipping nectar from it.

To us, the blue and orange against black is extraordinarily beautiful, but to a bird, the color combination says “Look, but don’t eat!” While it's a caterpillar, the Pipevine Swallowtail stores toxins in its body from its pipevine host plant, making him unpalatable to birds. Because of this, birds usually leave him alone. In Ohio, five other butterflies have evolved the same color pattern. By mimicking the color combination of the Pipevine Swallowtail, these other species gain protection from predators.

Common Milkweed is the host plant for Monarchs.

Female Monarchs lay just one egg per plant under

a leaf. Monarch caterpillars ingest and store toxins

from the Common Milkweed plant just as Pipevine

caterpillars do from pipevine plants. Birds soon

learn to leave Monarchs alone too.

Zebra Swallowtails love nectaring on Common Milkweed also. When I was at Strouds Run, a gorgeous Zebra Swallowtail hung around for quite a while, going over each blossom carefully.

A Zebra Swallowtail at Strouds Run State Park in Athens, Ohio

Birding in Athens, Ohio and Hocking Hills

...continued from the Road Trip! post.

Today I made it to Strouds Run State Park. It's not far at all from my hotel and seemed a great place to start. It was very pretty. Most notable were the butterflies, blackberries and Catbirds!

A Zebra Swallowtail butterfly...I know this because I bought

"Butterflies of Ohio" by Jaret C. Daniels at the Wayne National

Forest Visitor's Center. It's about time I start learning the

names of these incredibly beautiful and beneficial creatures!

A Silver Spotted Skipper. You can't see his orange

splotch. It's hidden behind that spiky blade of grass.

I think this is a Great Spangled Fritillary. Look at his

tattered wings. He has seen better days. I wonder what

happened to him? Maybe a bird tried to nip at him...

or he overwintered and his wings are just worn.

In Cincy, I see Catbirds every year, but not that many of them, but at Strouds Run State Park, I saw twelve...and every one was near, on, or eating blackberries! In three different spots in the park, I saw batches of blackberries and found Catbirds. Unfortunately, they said "No photographs today, please. We are eating blackberries and have no time for posing."

Wherever I saw a stand of blackberries,

I saw several Catbirds standing around...

Yum...I would too!

What in the world is this???

Check out this photo. I took it on the Hocking River Bike Trail. In the bottom-right corner, you can see a very blurry Acadian Flycatcher looking down (another non-posing bird), but what creeps me out is on the left side on the trunk of the tree. It looks like a big gelatinous pink wormy thing. I didn't see this when I took the photo...I only noticed it when I was cropped down the photo of the Acadian Flycatcher. I have five photos and they all have this on them, in the same spot. Is it some sort of fungus...or some sort of alien wormy thing? I hope someone out there knows! It's sort of weird...

Do you see the blurry flycatcher at the bottom right?

Now...look to the left. Do you see that pink, segmented,

wormy thing? It's pretty big and extends all the way up

the side of the tree for 3 or 4 feet (maybe more...that's

all my photo shows). It's that glistening bumpy stuff.

Here's a shot of just that end piece. See the segments?

I guess it's some sort of fungus, but it looks like it could

uncurl and reach out and grab that flycatcher! :-)