Swallowtail

I found a butterfly! I have read that this is an eastern black swallowtail, but I'm a beginner at identifying butterflies, so I could be completely wrong. I do know that it's a swallowtail though because of the little parts that stick out at the back end of its wings.

I was wondering if I would ever get any butterfly pictures this year, but then they started coming one right after the other. So I'll be showing you more butterflies in the coming days. I have some that are even better than these!

When I found this one there were many others zooming around eluding my camera. I thought I had no chance until I found this butterfly sitting there on this plant resting. I was able to get as many pictures as I wanted of this flying flower.

I have to say that I love watching butterflies flying around in a field, especially if there are a lot of them. But it's a lot easier to get pictures of them if they stay still. There were plenty of them because there waren't many other people around.

I actually found a great time of day to go to this park. Right after work time almost nobody is there. When I went in there was only a couple of people in the whole park, and when I left I was the only one there. That's what I call bliss.

I met the two women who were there when I was about halfway through. They stopped and told me they saw an owl, but of course it was gone already. An owl would have been exciting to get on camera. I'll have to see if I can learn where to watch for them.

I've got one last subject before I go today.

Over at Nature center Magazine we have the return of an old friend. Rob Wayne, who I have known most of my life, has come back to write a few articles for us. Some of you may remember him from the early days of the magazine as the person who wrote the Free Wallpaper articles. Well, he didn't really enjoy that, so I took over in his name after awhile.

What Rob really wanted to do was to give his opinion on some nature related things. The problem was that his opinions can get rather strong. At the time I didn't want such abrasive articles on the website. Rob is a good guy, but I wanted the site to be a little more gentle than some of the things he was proposing.

But now things have changed just a bit. I still don't necessarily agree with the things he says, but we need to make progress. Nature Center Magazine has grown its number of readers greatly since it started, with some of our articles getting over 1000 page views. But the comment count hasn't really grown equivalently. Many people may get upset by the things Rob writes, but I also think they might want to return their own opinions after reading.

What would you do in my situation? I think Rob Wayne might be a necessary evil. Like I said though, any of you who know him also know that he's really a good person. Anyway, you'll have to judge for yourselves when you read some of the articles he writes. People will either love him or they'll hate him, but I don't think he'll be ignored.


Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!