Butterfly Count at CONG

A couple of weeks ago I helped out with a Butterfly Count at the CONG.  I went out with Terri Hogan---the head of the Resource Management Division---and our butterfly guy, Carl.  We drove out to Bates Fork, the brown splotch on the right hand side of the map, to count.

It was a beautiful day, and most of our time was spent in or along a couple of fields, so there was plenty to count.  Here's a fun shot of Terri and Carl.  Carl is consulting one of his guide books, and Terri is looking perturbed.  This is the only picture I have of them, but I swear, it is deceptive!  Terri is one of the most friendly, relax people I have every met.  She had a great time during the count and was wonderful company.  She was in the best of moods the entire day!

This is mostly going to be pictures.  There is not a lot to say about much of it.  It was sunny and hot, we saw butterflies, we identified butterflies, we counted butterflies!  But, before I start spitting out butterflies, there was one in particular that is worth chatting about...

We spotted this little Common Checkered Skipper early in the day.  It lighted on a piece of grass and I snapped a quick, albeit blurry, picture before it took off again.

When it landed on its next perch---a weedy looking purple flower---it began acting kinda funny, fluttering its wings pretty fast.  I didn't pay much attention to its behavior, but I was able to get a better shot.

Upon closer inspection, I learned that its frantic flutter was actually a butterflyish death rattle!  It was caught in the pedipalps of a well camouflaged crab spider! 

Hmmm, come to think of it, I wonder if the Checkered Skipper should be counted in a situation such as this.  We certainly saw it, but it ceased to be before we reported our numbers!  (Not truly an issue, we counted hundreds of these and ended up having to approximate anyway.)


Let me digress for a moment... Before heading out to Bates Fork, I spotted these little critters on one of the animal-proof recycling bins at the visitor center.  I don't know what they are, but they were pretty cool.  I think my next PhD might be in entomology.

Back to the Flutterbys.

A Pearly-Eye.  Can't say which kind due to bad lighting.

A Common Buckeye.

Here's some kind of medium size Skipper.  "Brown Butterfly" was the story of the day.  I learned a lot, but I forgot even more, like the name of this critter!  It looks like a little bitty fighter jet if you ask me.  It is "flight ready" with it's wee wings standing up.

This one is a Long-tailed Skipper, our special species of the day.  It looks kind of dull, and it is kind of dull, except that it's not.  The pictures don't do it justice.  The bluish-green color was really beautiful.

I love how its little face is in focus here with its curled up, red proboscis!

Skipper Sex.  Nough said.

Here's a Viceroy.  This one is a Monarch mimic, distinguishable by the black line through the hindwings and the single line of white dots in the marginal band.

A Gray Hairstreak.  She posed for a picture broadside, then turned to show me her cute face! (The male has an orange-tipped abdomen.)

 Can you guess why it's called a Hairstreak?

What you see below is a Gulf Fritillary, one of the most beautiful of the butterflies, at least if you ask me.  I decided it had a silly name, so I've renamed it Iridescence Immaculates.  I absolutely love the fuzzy little orange and white striped (not stripped, Mom) body!  We saw hundreds of these!

A Carolina Satyr. 

Lace-winged Roadside Skipper.

Fiery Skipper.

Silver-spotted Skipper.  This one is identifiable by what I was told was Idaho on its wings.  Looks more like an upside-down Illinois if you ask me!

And we'll round things off with some butterfly-eaters.  So it goes...

If you do a Google image search, you find lots of different things called Golden Orb Weavers.  But, the silk of the Golden Orb Weaver is actually golden in color.  It was really neat to see this massive arachnid.  The abdomen was about two inches long, and I mistakenly thought that the yellow web was coated in pollen.

I'm not sure what this one is, but the way it was positioned overhead on its shimmering web was pretty cool (and creepy)!

David and Elizabeth visit Columbia!

David, ElizaBEST, and Eva visited for a couple of days earlier in the summer on their way to North Carolina.  When they got in we hung out at the house, did some fishing, and more-or-less just relaxed. 

Eliz enjoying the spoils of the day.  The sweet potato fries makes it healthy!

The next day I took them to campus.  David, Eva and I picked up some coffee and wondered around while Eliz went for a run. 

Relaxing on the Horseshoe.

Jesus rays!

When Elizabeth was sufficiently worked out we stopped by my office the headed to the CONG.

David did some trail running, but got turned around and ended up back at the visitors center too soon.  So, we headed out on the boardwalk.  It was a brisk walk as we were trying to keep the mosquitoes off of Eva.  If you stop walking in the floodplain during the summer, you're a goner for sure!

David got to meet one of my favorite trees, a 650 (appx) year old Bald Cypress that was most likely spared the saw in the early 1900's because of the bulge that you see on the left.

He was later caught in the middle of some other crazy antics in the woods.

Eva got to meet her first park rangers, and was a perfect angel!

I was sad to see them go when their short visit came to an end, but they will be back!

Paddling the Lower Saluda

Earlier in the summer I went out with Vikki, her son Chris, and a friend of hers along with her two teenage boys (working on kayaking badges) to paddle the Lower Saluda River. 

We put in at Gardendale Landing, where the "A" is on the satellite map below.

We had originally planned to paddle downstream and take out south of downtown Columbia.  But, when Vikki visited the kayak shop the day before, she guys there talked her out of it.  None of us had paddled this river before, and it is recommended that if beginners are going out---the teenagers had never paddled before---they be led by someone experienced who knows the river.  There can be some tricky spots downstream from Gardendale.  When the release the dam (you can see Lake Murray on the edge of the map) the rapids can easily and quickly rise to class III-IV, occasionally V.  So we headed upstream instead. 

We had to paddle up through several sets of class II rapids.  Chris, being young and being in a brand new 14 ft Wilderness kayak, had things pretty easy.

The rest of us had to work a little harder (not that Chris wasn't working hard).

The two boy scouts were real troopers and approached the challenge head on!

Trepidation?  I think not!  Determination!

But the process was pretty exhausting.

Resting after one (of many) unsuccessful attempt to punch through the whitewater

Eventually, some of us (and all of us at some point) had to resort to a less elegant technique.

On one of my attempts, I found myself perpendicular to the current with a large boulder on my downstream side.  Though I was weary of it and tried to avoid it, at some point I tipped a little too far toward my upstream side, and water started pouring over the boat.  Now, this isn't as dire a situation in a sit-on-top as it is in a sit-in kayak, but it effectively served to pull the boat under the water none-the-less.  So, I had to hop off and haul the boat past the shoal.

We paddled up a little ways past Saluda Shoals State park to where the star in on the map above.  Vikki and I hopped out for a quick dip in the frigid water.  We were not very far from Lake Murray.  Lake Murray is 200 ft deep at its deepest, so the water that is released from the dam is always pretty chilly.  The area of the river that we were on has a nearly constant temperature of 55 degrees.  As soon as I jumped in I felt like I was swimming in Montana!  It was perfect!  But we didn't stay in for very long!

We paddled down one set of rapids and stopped at Saluda Shoals for lunch.

The teenage boys were being good sports, but they enjoyed the break.  After eating and a little goofing around, we got back on the river.

This time, it was all down stream, and it was easy going.

Now, let's chat a minute about the difference between a sit-on-top and a sit-in kayak.  Sit-on-tops are generally more stable on the water, but I've had my suspicions after numerous trips down the log-laden Cedar Creek about how well they do with...obstacles.  In a sit-in, you are basically sitting on the floor of the boat, but with an SOT, you are sitting several inches higher.  I've always suspected that this made them overly top-heavy.  I learned a little more about this while paddling down through a set of rapids on the Lower-Saluda.  Once you start to tip, there's not much room for recovery on these things!  So, after smooth sailing through a couple of class IIs, perhaps I was a little over-confident.  I bumped over a rock, the boat started to tip, and the next thing I knew I was in the water!

A soggy celebration

But, I managed to keep my hat and sunglasses on my head!  The water was low, so not much fear of drowning, but it puts the rocky riverbed right in your face.  My face was okay though, I escaped with only a gash on my elbow.  (I was happy to hear that the next weekend when Vikki and her husband took the same trip, he ended up in the river as well.  Sorry, Brian!)

When we made it back to the Gardendale Landing, the last order of business was for the boy scouts to make a wet exit and recover their kayaks.  Oh the pains of badge-earning!  Chris borrowed Big Red to assist if needed.

It was a good trip, we plan to do it again.