insect

Tag

By American Rubyspot

Jordan Lake. This damselfly is well named: American rubyspot. It is a new addition to my insect life list. The damselflies are tiny, delicate and just as ferocious hunters as their bigger cousins the dragonflies.

By Mud-Puddling

Jordan Lake. This red-spotted admiral butterfly is mud puddling. It is lapping up various minerals, salts and amino acids that it needs in order to have a balanced diet. I find it absolutely fascinating that some butterflies which we associate with flying and floating between flowers actually spend time on the ground getting some of their nutrients.

By First of the Year

Jordan Lake Dam, Haw River: Usually, when I sit down to edit my day’s photo shoot, I go chronologically. But this afternoon, I began at the end of the shoot so I could bring you my first eastern tiger swallowtail of this year. Please enjoy the sunny bright colors of the butterfly sipping nectar from the blooming redbud tree. Now, where was I … oh yes … on to the ospreys from this morning.

By Jordan Lake Dam Critters, 4 photos 10/07/2018
Jordan Dam Critters
 
The monarch butterflies are migrating and this morning at the dam I had more than a dozen flit past me, all heading south.
 
 
The veins are so well defined on the wings of this common buckeye butterfly.
 
 
And, so, when is a butterfly, not a butterfly?
For the answer: study these next two photos…
 
 
When the flying insect is a grasshopper.  How about the elegance in those wings!!

By Jordan Lake Dam update, 5 photos 09/28/2018
I realized this evening that I have been concentrating on water, water, flooding water everywhere.
So, let’s catch up with some of the other events in the Jordan Lake Dam Neighborhood.
 
While trying to catch the fog lifting above the long leaf pine meadow, a flock of double-crested cormorants graced the rising sun.
 
 
A fledgling bald eagle, one of this year’s babies, seemed to challenge the sun and flew into the east.
 
 
Here is an adult bald eagle, very intent on something way across the main lake, near where the Haw River joins the Middle Creek.
 
 
If her stout beak had not protruded way past the clump of leaves where she perched, I would have missed the female belted kingfisher.
 
 
And then there are the small winged creatures, like this common buckeye butterfly, that try to sense if I am to be avoided or dismissed.