giant owl – Beth's Planet

Butterfly Diary 2016, Week 4

March 23, 2016October 1, 2016Posted in Animals, Blog posts, Butterflies, Plant PicsTagged atala hairstreak, blue morpho, Butterflies in Bloom, butterfly, clearwing, Dow Gardens, giant owl, gold banded forester, great orange tip butterfly, magnificent owl, Midland Michigan, paper kite butterfly1 Comment

We had giant owls already, but now we have magnificent owls as well. They are slightly smaller but also differ by the yellow band on the wing.

Paper kite and buckeye butterflies on yellow marigolds — Today we had the largest paper kite any of us present had seen. Toward the upper left corner is a buckeye.

Butterfly on camera equipment — When I first came in for my Butterflies in Bloom shift at Dow Gardens, there were several photographers set up in the conservatory. While one of them was focused on another butterfly, this one settled on his remaining equipment.

Gold banded forester butterfly on a yellow marigold — The object of their attention was this gold banded forester.

Orangetip butterfly — This great orange tip was content to sit on the emergence case for a while. Down below are some of our laminated ID sheets, which show some of our more common varieties. Once we topped 140, we gave up on listing them all because the photos would have been tiny.

Black and yellowish green butterfly with brown, white and pink tones on underside of wing — This is one of my favorites, because it is so different on the two sides of the wings. While the top is black with a greenish yellow, the underside has tones of brown, white, green and sometimes pink.

This was a crasher, a blue butterfly that fell as soon as it emerged. I scooped it up and moved it to a less crowded spot. Within minutes it had opened its wings fully and was well on the way to growing strong.

This blue morpho and two giant owls were deeply camped on this food dish. This was the first time I saw butterflies act territorial; many smaller ones got pushed firmly away by an owl’s leg.

Emergence case full of varied chrysalises and recently emerged butterflies — Can you tell it was a busy day for emergence?

Atala butterfly — This atala hairstreak butterfly is perhaps our tiniest.

Clearwing butterfly on a yellow marigold — Just a little larger is this Costa Rican clearwing (yes, cleverly named).

Butterfly Diary 2016, Week 3

March 16, 2016October 1, 2016Posted in Animals, Blog posts, ButterfliesTagged Butterflies, Butterflies in Bloom, butterfly, clipper butterfly, Dow Gardens, giant owl, Midland, small postman butterfly, swallowtail, zebra mosaicLeave a comment

Four longwing butterflies in a feeding dish

We had a tough combination at Dow Gardens’ Butterflies in Bloom on Tuesday: lots of small children and lots of butterflies that wanted to hang out on the floor. Besides the obvious traffic hazard, the floor was a little chilly so I moved any butterflies that seemed inclined to linger there.

A green and brown butterfly hanging upside down — Not on the floor but near, upside down on the storage cabinet beneath the emergence case

One advantage of having lots of small children visit is that they are quite concerned about the welfare of the butterflies. Several of them called me over to look at an emerald swalllowtail that was motionless on a leaf. It was battered but not quite dead, so I gently scooped it up and promised to put it in a protected area (which I did), and reminded them that the butterflies don’t live a long time, so this one might just have been 85 in butterfly years.

Emerald swallowtail — This emerald swalllowtail likely did not live much longer; the varieties we bring in have life spans of only a few weeks

Just after this, a boy about first grade came up, softly took me by the hand and led me to the object of his concern, a black crumpled object in a puddle below a misting fan.

“That’s a dead leaf. It’s OK,” I told him.

“I thought it was a butterfly.”

“No, it’s a leaf, but thank you. That was important for you to tell me. Good job.”

A butterfly (sorry, ID is tough sometimes) — A clipper near the frog pond … but not too near

We also had a few butterflies that hadn’t developed properly, but were strong enough to fly around and find food. One orange Julia in particular was a bit wrinkled and a little slower than it should have been, so when I found one child preparing to hand it off to another, I pointed out how its wings were not quite as flat as they should have been and asked them to be extra careful.

The giant owl below was a worse off example, and it kept falling to the floor. I ended up moving it to our orchid room, where at least if it fell again it would land on dirt, not concrete.

Identifying butterflies as opposed to other creatures is especially interesting because they can offer two very different views, depending on whether you see the top or underside of their wings. One of the most striking examples we have is the blue morpho, which is brown with an outer row of spots on the underside, but a brilliant blue on the top.

(The most thorough ID site I have seen is at Discover Life, www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q.)

In the two photos below, you can see the underside, then the top side of the same zebra mosaic butterfly’s wings.

We get visitors who are quite serious about photography, with equipment to match. I often ask them if there is any particular variety they are seeking, and usually they’re just looking for whatever is new.

One gentleman, though, was focused on finding a clearwing. I had seen one in the emergence case and when I was letting out numerous other small butterflies, I called him over and pointed it out on the underside of a shelf.

“Do you want to shoot it here before I let it out, so you can be sure you have it?” He shook his head and I realized he needed it in a natural environment, so I released it and we watched together to see where it landed.

(Just after that a 9ish boy on the opposite side of the case tapped the glass and asked me if I would get out the red and black swallowtail that was shivering there. “Sorry, that one’s not ready.” Case relocked.)

The clearwing conveniently landed on a plant just below shoulder height, and soon there were several photographers gathered, politely taking their turns at the angles they wanted. After a few minutes, the gentleman showed me one of the many photos he had taken of the clearwing and explained that he and another gentleman he had met about 20 years ago had started shooting butterflies at the annual exhibit at the Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, but then had started traveling to Midland as well.

“Mine’s better,” he said of his photo.

“Oh, so you compete to see who can get the best shot of each variety,” I said, smiling and nodding.

He wouldn’t confirm it aloud, but his sly smile spoke for him.

Four different varieties of butterflies share a feeding dish — Butterflies of different types often feed together, but this is the first time I’ve seen such a variety share a food dish.

Butterfly Diary 2015, Week 5: A photo gallery

March 26, 2015October 1, 2016Posted in Animals, Blog posts, ButterfliesTagged Butterflies, Butterflies in Bloom, butterfly, chrysalis, Dow Gardens, giant owl, giant swallowtail, lacewing, Mexican bluewing, Midland, paper kite butterfly, pipevine swallowtail, postman butterfly, queen butterfly, spicebush swallowtailLeave a comment

My favorite photo of the week, a paper kite hanging from its chrysalis.

A spicebush swallowtail feeds on a zinnia.

A sunny day meant lots of emergence for Butterflies in Bloom this week. When the temperature hit 85 in the Conservatory, the vents opened, so keeping the floors wet was a challenge this week. I still managed to squeeze in a few photos, and stayed after my shift to try for a few more.

This shows the underside of the wing of the butterfly pictured at top, the spicebush swallowtail. This one is hanging in our “nursery” Norfolk pine for some extra attention and drying time.

A Mexican bluewing still in the chrysalis case. The dark spots on the TENA pad are meconium, or waste fluid, that the butterflies expel as they unfurl and flap their wings to dry while hanging. We put pads under each chrysalis shelf and spray them heavily to boost the humidity in the case. — A Mexican bluewing still in the chrysalis case. The dark spots on the TENA pad are meconium, or waste fluid, that the butterflies expel as they unfurl and flap their wings to dry while hanging. We put pads under each chrysalis shelf and spray them heavily with water to boost the humidity in the case.

A chrysalis for one of the owl butterflies, I believe the giant owl. See how it’s transparent at the top? The Dow Gardens entomologist, Elly Maxwell Grosteffon, said this one likely would be emerging within the next day.

I reached out to Elly for help when I couldn’t identify this while editing and she told me it is a lacewing. Many photos show the tops of butterfly wings, so identifying by the undersides is harder. It gets trickier still because so many varieties have duller undersides for camouflage, such as the popular blue morpho, which is brown with a line of large spots on the undersides, but a brilliant blue on the wing tops. The blue morphos also are notoriously uncooperative for cameras.

A queen, which is the type, not the gender. It is somewhat battered, likely from courting rituals. I find the orange Julias and zebra longwings especially amorous, and sometimes gently shoo them out of the nursery when they try to mate with a new insect, such as the orange sulphur that crashed with its wings furled and had trouble hanging onto the tree at all. Sadly, it did not survive.

A pipevine swallowtail. — Above, a pipevine swallowtail. Below, my favorite photo of the week, a paper kite hanging from its chrysalis.

Butterfly Diary 2015, Week 4: Winter gives way to spring

March 22, 2015October 1, 2016Posted in Animals, Blog posts, ButterfliesTagged Butterflies, Butterflies in Bloom, butterfly, Dow Gardens, giant owl, MidlandLeave a comment

The waterfall near the entrance is much more liquid now.

A newly emerged buckeye. While many have a mostly brown background, some breeders emphasize colorings that are purple or green, like this one.

A sunny day in the Dow Gardens Conservatory meant lots of butterflies emerging this week. Visitors still were frustrated by the blue morphos, which seem to know when a camera isn’t ready to capture the striking blue topsides of their wings, and instead present the interestingly patterned but quite brown undersides.

I felt their pain. Among the varieties I saw but didn’t get were a queen (my own fault, I put one in the nursery tree but forgot to shoot it), Mexican bluewing, tailed jay and the tiny but striking Atala hairstreak.

Of course, the climate indoors and that outdoors were quite different.

As the stream by the Conservatory thaws, multiple layers of leaves that were frozen into it are revealed.

The waning days of winter showed most of the snow pack gone, but the “pond ice is unstable” sign remains up to warn visitors.

The frogs LOVE the butterfly exhibit. It is tasty.

Back indoors, one of the frogs came out to sun itself, which was fun to point out to the kids. Usually the frogs stay in the pond and are much harder to spot, although “Can you find the frogs?” is a great question to ask kids who can’t seem to settle down.

Among the largest babies of Butterflies in Bloom are the giant owls, below. The exhibit continues through April 19.