Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Shy Hepatica in All Her Subtle Glory, and her Sunny Friend Tussilago

April 15, 2015

After last night's steady spring showers, the ephemeral wildflowers have started to leap up out of the leaves, ready to lavish us with their blossoms. My goal this year is to catalog them here, each day as they bloom, and also post the moth pictures I take this spring and summer to add to my growing photo collection of Lepidoptera pictures.

So today two of my faithful spring heralds greeted me in my walk around the yard and gardens. Now I believe that Spring is truly here at last. The first bloom I saw was my dearly loved Common Hepatica.  Hepatica nobilis var. acuta

http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/hepatica_nobilis.shtml



I just found a poem that made my heart sing almost as much as seeing the return of these gentle beauties.



Hepatica  by: John Burroughs 

When April's in her genial mood,
And leafy smells are in the wood,
In sunny nook, by bank or brook,
Behold this lovely sisterhood.

 A spirit sleeping in the mould,
And tucked about by leafage old,
Opens an eye blue as the sky,
And trusting takes the sun or cold.

 Before a leaf is on the tree,
Or booms the roving bumblebee,
She hears a voice, "Arise, rejoice!"
In furry vestments cometh she.

 Before the oven-bird has sung,
Or thrush or chewink found a tongue,
She ventures out and looks about,
And once again the world is young.

 Sometimes she stands in white array,
Sometimes as pink as dawning day,
Or every shade of azure made,
And oft with breath as sweet as May.

 Sometimes she bideth all alone,
And lifts her face beside a stone,--
A child at play along the way,
When all her happy mates have flown.

 Again in bands she beams around,
And brightens all the littered ground,
And holds the gaze in leafless ways--
A concert sweet without a sound.

 Like robin's song or bluebird's wing,
Or throats that make the marshes ring,
Her beaming face and winsome grace
Are greetings from the heart of spring

Read more at http://www.blackcatpoems.com/b/hepatica.html#so6LqDygA7H47Bzt.99



My second sunny greeting of the day was this lowly but lovely solitary Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) bloom.  Tusilago farfara rolls off the tongue so nicely. Taking time to savor these words because for some reason that is a latin name I did not assimilate over myriads of years of wildflowering.


So perfectly unassuming, and leaves do not come until after it blooms. But tenacious as they get, blooming often in sunny patches right through the snow.
Did I mention how much I adore Spring and all of it's Wonders?
 

Monday, February 9, 2015

I'm the Mama, A New Season Begins



With Spring around the corner, my thoughts automatically turn to the return of flowers and butterflies. My favorite butterfly, the orange and black Monarch, stole my heart away when I was 15 years old, and every Spring I am on pins and needles waiting to see the first return of the new year.

Monarch butterflies return to Chautauqua County about June 1st.
This is a journal entry that I wrote on June 2, 2008.

"Today I saw my first monarch butterfly of 2008! I went to the nature center to work on the butterfly garden a bit, and the first thing I saw when I got out of the car was a monarch butterfly flitting past me.

Last year the first one I saw was a female and she showed up on June 10th. I followed this pretty little monarch as it flitted across the field. Every once in awhile it would dart down to the ground as if looking for something, and then fly on. This is common behavior for a female butterfly when she is looking for a host plant to deposit her eggs on. Milkweeds (Asclepias) are the only plants that monarch larvae can thrive on. As well as a food plant, milkweed when ingested by a monarch caterpillar, also provides a natural toxin that discourages birds and other predators from eating the larvae and adult butterfly.

Each year it becomes more and more difficult for female monarchs to find enough milkweed to lay their eggs on. Years ago a female would generally deposit only one egg on each plant. Now that milkweed is harder to find, it is not uncommon to see up to 10 or 15 eggs on one plant at times. Open meadows and grass lands where milkweed grows wild are developed into new housing and shopping areas. Road crews spray or mow milkweed down along the edges of the byways where it commonly  takes root and grow. Corn, soybean, and other crop fields are treated with herbicides like glyphosate (Roundup) to control weeds. Due to the cumulative effect of these and other factors, it has been estimated that in the US alone, 167 million acres of monarch butterfly habitat have been lost in the last 10 to 15 years. Monarch numbers are dwindling as their habitat dwindles. 
To see a graph of the decline in Monarch numbers click here:  http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/PopulationMexicoAnalyzeGraph.html

That is why I planted a butterfly garden, and have started a Monarch Waystation. I encourage common milkweed (A. syriaca) and swamp milkweed (A. incarnata) to grow along the edges of my yard and in my small meadow. I also have "butterflyweed" (A. tuberosa) which is another milkweed native to New York State that is compact and grows nicely in a more formal garden. They call it butterfly weed because it is a favorite nectar plant for all butterflies and also a host plant for monarch butterflies. I am also trying my hand at propagating several other types of milkweed that are not as common as these three."


To read more about how you can start your own Monarch Waystation and help out monarch butterflies click here: http://monarchwatch.org/waystations

Plant Milkweed to help our beloved Monarchs!

Friday, February 6, 2015

It's About Time . . . . .

   
   Pussy Toes (antennaria ) and Fringed Polygala (Polygala paucifolia)
Two very elusive ephemeral flowers that I have been on the lookout for since I moved here, so imagine my delight to find them growing together in a sunny patch just up the road from me !

February 6, 2015

Time is something I never seem to have enough of. This is most likely because I have enough interests/hobbies/projects started to keep ten people busy 24/7. The good thing about that is that I am never bored.

This nature blog is several years in the planning, but up to this point I have been so busy relocating and settling into a whole new life, immersing myself in the nature all around me, learning to use a new digital camera, getting adjusted to my new computer, and trying out Photoshop Elements 7, gardening and chicken tending, even the best of intentions seem to fall by the wayside.

Today is frigid and snowy outside, a good day to work on a blog!

I have had an avid interest in native wildflowers for as long as I can remember, and in anything nature related. I have been gardening since I learned how to toddle along behind my mother and her green thumbs.  For much of my life I been involved in raising and studying monarch butterflies, and other caterpillars that I come across in my travels. Thus many of my posts will be about flowers and butterflies that I come across, but also anything else nature related that strikes my fancy or pops in front of my camera during my photo treks.

I am not a daily blogger, and perhaps never will be, as my life is just rather busy and truth be told not nearly as disciplined as I would like it to be. So if you would like to follow my entries I would suggest subscribing to my blog so that you will receive an email when I post something new.

I welcome comments and discussions and look forward to meeting others of you who share my passion for the natural world.

Enjoy what each day brings you, because the little miracles never cease.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Let Me Introduce Myself !


February 5, 2015

My name is Barbara, but in my social circle I am known as "Monarchmama".

I moved to NW New York State 8 1/2 years ago, and every day is a new learning experience as I get to know the flora and fauna that abounds in this lovely county where I now abide. I was born and raised the next county over in Pennsylvania, only 60 miles west of here where I spent thousands of hours of rambling and roving the natural places of Pennsylvania.  I assumed that the flora and fauna here in Chautauqua County would be the same, so it never ceases to amaze me when I discover a new creature or a new plant that I have never come across before. The motivation for this blog is to document these new discoveries and share them with others.

The reason I have been nick-named  Monarchmama is because I  have been raising Monarch Butterflies for almost 45 years. It is a passion of mine that has never dimmed, and has led me to meet some very interesting people, and get involved in an environmental issue that means a great deal to me. Over the years I have often shared this passion with school children, and with visitors to our local Audubon Nature Center.  I never tire of seeing the joy in the faces of those young and old,  when they get up close and personal with a monarch butterfly, or a monarch caterpillar.

Eventually, raising monarchs for my own pleasure and education, led me to get involved in two different migration studies. The first study was conducted by Dr. Fred Urquhart through the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He invited research associates to join him in that quest in 1952, and it continued until 1994 . You can read about Dr. Urquhart's 42 + years of involvement with monarchs in his book, "The Monarch Butterfly, International Traveler".  I only worked with him for three years, but learned so much in that short time, and cherish the correspondence we shared during those years.

The second study, was started in 1992 by Dr. Orley (Chip) Taylor, through "Monarchwatch", http://monarchwatch.org , at the University of Kansas, USA, and 22 years later it is still ongoing, and open to anyone who wants to participate in a citizen scientist project. It is a wonderful program for people of all ages, especially anyone who loves monarchs and wants to help with monarch conservation.
 
What does it mean to tag a butterfly? A self-adhesive tag is applied to the lower back wing of a Fall monarch that has been raised or captured, and then release it back into the wild. The tag contains information on how to contact the University of Kansas so that you can notify them if you find or capture a monarch with a tag on it. The purpose of this study is to learn the route these monarchs take in the Fall migration to Mexico. Over the years they have learned many interesting monarch facts such as how far a monarch can travel in one day, and have verified the winter destination of migrating monarchs east of the Rockies continues to be the southern mountains of Mexico.

Monarchs are in trouble - if you want to help their migration phenomenon to continue, read my future blogs about things you can do personally.