Saturday Safari on the Eno

Today I went out and did a river walk by myself. I ended up on our local river the Eno River. Stupid me I had the camera set to 800 ISO instead of my normal ISO 200, likely I'll trash these photos as everything here I had taken better photos of in the past. Sadly most every interesting butterfly or dragonfly found in the parts I has gotten good or excellent photos of already.


American Rubyspot (Hetaerina americana) The red male is above and the greenish female is below. These Broad-winged Damselflies are found over most of the country, I have seen them in AZ and TX. If you want to find them you'll have to get right on the water as they like to live near moving water or rapids.

Below is an eye to eye encounter with the female American Rubyspot!



Blue-ringed Dancer (Argia sedula) male. I saw maybe 100 of these today they were all along the river and in the grasses along the Eno as well.

Little Glassywing, Pompeius verna on Swamp Milkweed. You can find more on the Little Glassywing skipper here.

Zabulon Skipper, Poanes zabulon male. This small woodland skipper is my favorite I have 4 photos of these guys in 6 books and I was paid each time for all the photos in each book! More on the Zabulon Skipper here.

Gemmed Satyr, Cyllopsis gemma We have a small population of these little satyrs here at Paradise. Satyrs are IDed easily by the bouncing almost comical way they fly. Telling this one from the more common Carolina Satyr on the wing is hard but once landed it is easy.

Northern Pearly-eye, Enodia anthedon I saw 10 of these today and that is a lot for this somewhat secretive satyr. There are three pearly-eyes Northern, Southern and Creole see my page on the Northern at this page. I know of a place where it is told you can find all three species together but my luck didn't work for me when looking for them.



Red-spotted Purple, Limenitis arthemis astyanax found this freshly emerged butterfly on the shore of the Eno today. It was still drying it's wings so I got to take photos without it leaving town on me.


OK, some of you are going to have a fit, quiet Grace :-)
Here is a full grown female Chinese Mantis all 4 inches of here! The largest I have seen in some time. I once found one of these with a hummingbird as prey, it caught it by hiding on a goldenrod flower. I was to say the least stunned.