Category: Photography

I walked the Rocky Valley Trail Saturday morning while it was cool.  At the top and bottom there was quite a bit of bird song, Summer Tanager, Carolina Wren, Pine Warbler, Red-eyed Vireo, to name a few but in the middle silence. Along the way I got a picture of a cooperative Carolina Wren, what I think is a Blue-tipped Dancer, and a reluctant Southern Copperhead.  He would not budge and I wasn’t about to place an ankle within striking distance so after a bit I found a long piece of river cane and gently urged him to move along so that I could too.  Note the pits on top of the head of this pit viper.  After the trail, I stopped at their flower garden and picked up a first of season Silver-spotted Skipper, a generic robberfly, and a Prairie Lizard.  Note the blue on the Prairie Lizard.

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I visited Camp Thursday morning hoping for “bugs”.  It was kind a slow but I saw a few. Best of all was the new to me Common Wood-Nymph.  After a bit of asking “what is that?” I was able to do a celebratory fist bump even if by myself. Also seen were Variegated Fritillaries, Black Swallowtails, Red-banded Hairstreaks, first confirmed Halloween Pennant of the season, and American Lady. I’m beginning to appreciate how similar Painted and American Ladies are. In comparing some photos, the main difference from above at least may be that the American has a white spot in the orange. There is another area that is orange in the Painted Lady pictures and orange in the American Lady pictures I’ve seen but I don’t know if that is diagnostic.  I also noted a fair amount of blooming False Dandelion that I did not see 11 days ago at the butterfly count.

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I started a beautiful weekend at Two Rivers Park Saturday morning. The primary goal was butterflies and dragonflies rather than birds but  take what I can get.  Things were kind of slow there so I proceeded to Pinnacle Mountain State Park and visited their flower garden.  I found that the Purple Coneflower, Sweet Coneflower, Gayfeather, and other plants were starting to bloom.  It still wasn’t very busy but while there I found American ladies, Eastern tailed-Blue, Common Buckeye, Red Saddlebags, and some kind of pennant dragon who wouldn’t stay still.

Sunday morning I started at Audubon Arkansas, checking their flower garden and field and then went to the Witt Stephens Nature Center to check their flower garden.  Finally in the afternoon I visited the fishing pond at Cook’s Landing to see what it might hold. No rarities were found but sunshine and fresh air are it own rewards.

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