Longwing butterflies

Longwing butterflies, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Smith.

This month I've noticed many small passionvines thriving: climbing up shrubs and sprawling over the ground. These passionvines have an undistinguished small flower, and bear small purple fruits. I'm sure that some are the native corky-stemmed passionvine because of the mottled brown and corky base of the vine. Others I'm not so sure of – partly because the leaves are so variable, and the corky-stemmed version doesn't always have a corky stem when it’s young.

I see some with three-lobed skinny leaves, some with fat lobes, and then there are the plants suddenly sporting “mitten” leaves. One plant has no lobes at all, just a pleasant oval leaf shape. They all attract these three butterflies, the Julia, Gulf Fritillary, and Zebra longwing. The attraction is a chemical that renders the caterpillar (and butterfly) distasteful to predators. So the butterflies identify this helpful plant (through sensors in their feet), and lay their eggs.

All three of these butterflies have elongated upper wings, hence the common name of longwing. The caterpillars are different colors, but each species has wicked-looking spines in rows along their bodies. They are for looks, though; the spines are harmless.

The Julia butterfly is often a bright orange on top, but can also range to a soft ochre color. One year it seemed to be the summer of the Julia butterfly – there were Julias everywhere. Other times they seem scarce and are hard to find. They fly quickly, often zigzagging all over the place.

The Zebra Longwing is the Florida state butterfly. Its easy to identify, with its long black wings with yellow stripes and spots. Zebras like to fly more slowly, almost lazily. They also have an interesting bedtime habit – at night they fold their wings and roost communally on a branch or tree. One year a small community chose a nearby firebush as their night roosting spot, and I could get quite close to them at dusk. What an experience to creep up on thirty or forty butterflies all hanging down from a dead branch!

I've sketched the Gulf Fritillary before in this journal. They've been plentiful the last two summers, even though the butterflies in general seem to be fewer in number. This butterfly is bright orange with black markings on top, but oh so different below. Underneath, the wings are spotted with patches of silvery iridescence. Where Zebras prefer more shade, these butterflies seem to enjoy open sunny areas with a bit of cover.

Thanks for visiting! You can read a bit more about these butterflies at the links below.

Teachers, students, and parents: 
Please click here for a free down-loadable PDF coloring page of these butterflies.

You can also visit my Flickr photostream for more of my visual nature journal entries.
 
 Zebra Longwing in Wikipedia
 Gulf Fritillary in Wikipedia
 Julia at Floridata

Cicada

Cicada, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Smith.

Always heard but seldom seen, cicadas are one of my favorite summer insects. As a child, I loved finding cast off cicada nymphal casings, marveling at the translucent brown replicas. I found this dead cicada on the ground, still whole before scavenging ants and beetles feasted on the soft parts.

My Florida insect book must be old, as it lists the order as Homoptera, but Wikipedia tells me that it’s been changed to Hemiptera. The state of Florida is home to 19 different species of cicadas, out of the 2,500 species living throughout the world.

I thought all cicadas had a life cycle enveloping a 13 to 17 year cycle, but apparently that belongs to a particular genus in North America, the Magicicada. The so-called annual cicadas have a life span of 2 to 5 years.

The life cycle starts when a female lays eggs in a slit she cuts into a living twig. When the eggs hatch, the nymphs drop to the ground and burrow in to the soil, emerging later to shed their final skin (like the ones I found as a child), and become an adult cicada, ready to start the process all over again.

Interesting tidbits I learned about cicadas include:
•Their diet – they sip the juices of plants and trees above ground, and the roots when below ground.
•Adult cicadas are edible, and eaten in several countries.
•The name cicada means “tree cricket” (from the Latin).
•Only the males make noise.
•Cicada species can be identified by the particular noise they make. That means there are over 2,000 variations of cicada music! The noise has been referred to as thrumming, buzzing, clicking, or zithering (my favorite).
•They exist on all continents but Antarctica.
•They have an additional three small simple eyes (ocelli) between their two larger eyes.
•They love the heat of summer, and make the most noise during the hottest parts of the day.
•They are part of folklore (17 year locusts), poetry (signifying summer), and symbolism (reincarnation).

I enjoyed the opportunity to do some close-up studies of this insect, using my Pitt artist’s pen in dark sepia in a Pentalic Nature Sketch sketchbook. I added a few watercolor washes (Daniel Smith) as well, since there some interesting variations of browns on the body and wings.

For everything you’ve always wanted to know about Florida cicadas, visit the University of Florida’s website.

For cicadas in general, including audio clips of cicada music and a video clip of a molting cicada, visit Wikipedia’s entry.

You can click on the top image to view it larger on my Flickr photostream.

More nature sketching at Grace Place

A nature journal entry from our first field trip to Freedom Park.

In early August I worked with the summer campers at Grace Place a second time. We met at Freedom Park, so I could share with them one of my outdoor “studios.” After a short show-and-tell of my past nature journals, we took a short stroll down the boardwalk towards the wetland area.



Using our five senses to experience nature - our second field trip (Freedom Park).



I spoke to the kids briefly about my process, and how I become a nature detective in order to sharpen my observation skills for my drawings. Then I created a journal page with their input about the different things we saw, heard, and felt.

On our first field trip, we were enthralled at the sight of a large black snake climbing and sliding through a low shrub. On the second, we observed squirrels scampering up and down a laurel oak. Both times, we saw several types of plants, insects, berries, and nuts. The kids had sharp eyes!

Drawing and painting nature objects.



The following week I visited Grace Place with various nature objects and plant cuttings, and the kids had their opportunity to spend time creating their own nature art! The following day, each group shared their artwork in a group critique.

Busy at the art table testing our materials.



If you’d like to see photos and read a more detailed description of what we did, please visit my July post for a report on the process.

If you’d like to give your kids or students a simple way to create a nature journal page, I’ve created a free template that you can download and print. It has questions to spark observations and a space to draw. Use it to learn about the natural areas in nearby parks, schoolyards, and even your own backyard!



Making a study of a sea grape leaf with watercolor pencils.







Sometimes it's fun to research!



Thanks for visiting!

More car sketching

Some of you know that I often take advantage of long car trips to get a bit of drawing in. Usually the time before, during, and after a trip has strings attached: endless to-do lists, people to call or see, and time to rest (we are not spring chickens!).

On the way out, we enjoyed good weather and I sketched with my Pitt pen directly onto the sketchbook pages, in the mood for black and white ink drawings. You can read about these and see what I drew at this post for the Sketching in Nature blog.

On the way back, however, I felt the need for color! The top painting is a quick and loose impression of the Alabama countryside as it flashed by. I find that the practice of being forced to focus on images and commit details to memory has helped me. I have a good color memory, but I don’t remember unfamiliar shapes well. The more I do, though, the better my observation powers.

We ran into a massive rainstorm later, which eliminated my outdoor subjects. There weren’t even any interesting clouds, just uniform grayness obscuring most everything. I had picked up some leaves at a rest stop, so I settled in for some ink and watercolor work. The road was a bit bumpy, but I just went with it…it added a little more character and a further connection to the moment in time.

If you'd like to visit my my past post on car sketching, click here, and visit this link to my Flickr photostream if you'd like to see my old travel set-up, which shows my Sennelier travel watercolor set (I used my Daniel Smith travel palette on this tip).

You can click on the images to view larger. Thanks for visiting!