Category Archives: Insects et al

Eastern Black Swallowtail Butterfly on a Zinnia Flower

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Sunday, September 25, 2022,

This is a female Eastern Black Swallowtail Butterfly alighting upon a Zinnia flower. Do you know how I know? It is solely because I know several people that are much smarter and more informed than I am. To be quite honest, most of the folks I am acquainted with tend to be much more intelligent than myself. Of course, that’s not a very high bar. 🙂 

Friends of mine were able to identify both the flower and the butterfly for me. Actually, I had correctly guessed that this was an Eastern Black Swallowtail Butterfly, but my friend Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, who is a scientist at Cornell University, was able to further identify this beautiful critter as female. How cool is that? I told you I knew smart people. 🙂 JK 

 

Eastern Pondhawk

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Wednesday, September 23, 2020,

This beautiful critter is called the Eastern Pondhawk. It’s a dragonfly and, to be honest, I think all dragonflies are beautiful. This one’s a female. The males look completely different, having chalky blue bodies. I really like this striking green coloration, although it can be difficult to spot them amongst the greens of summer. It can be even harder to make them stand out in a photograph. I hope I did okay.  JK.

JK