By a Swamp

One day last week I decided to return to the beaver swamp to see if I could get some better shots of the rose pogonia orchids that grow there. It was a very windy and changeable day with clouds and sun, and rain possible in the afternoon. The waterlilies didn’t mind. There were many hundreds of them blossoming. As soon as I got out of the car the first thing I saw was a small butterfly on a daisy. It wasn’t sipping from the daisy, it was just sitting on it and looking around, turning this way and that. I found out later that it was a “bog copper” butterfly, which is a small brownish butterfly that likes to live in bogs and swamps. It is the smallest of the U.S. coppers and is native to the northeastern states. The red zig-zag line on the lower hind wing tells me this is a male. The female will lay a single egg on the underside of various cranberry plant leaves, where they will stay until emergence in spring. In spring the larvae will feed on only cranberry plants and adult bog coppers…