8.15.2010

New Butterfly!

This Gulf Fritillary held still...but the picture is still blurry!
The insect population in my yard was buzzing this morning with the news that the jasmine bushes are all in bloom, which was a nice surprise since yesterday they were mostly just buds. So I just took some time to enjoy the heavenly smell and observe all the activity going on. It's amazing just how many creatures that I can see with the naked eye are partaking of just one bush. Just while I stood there I saw a lizard, 2 Gulf Fritillary, 1 Giant Swallowtail, 2 new butterflies and 1 very fat bumblebee. And that's just the ones I could actually see! I wish I had the kind of camera that would capture them. Their size and speed, unfortunately, just result in blurry pictures - even when they sit still for me. (The picture at left was taken very early in the am when the butterfly was still sleeping/warming up for the day.)
Online image of a Long-tailed Skipper Butterfly


For a while I kept a journal of the butterflies I saw in my yard but after a bit, I was only ever writing down one name: Gulf Fritillary (I can find them in the yard, it seems, anytime I go out.) I've seen the Eastern Tiger, Zebra and Giant (which I mistook at first for a bird it's so large) and the Florida Sulpher at various times but after identifying those, I kept seeing the same types. So I was excited this morning to spot a new type: a Long-tailed Skipper. I would have thought it was a moth due to the monochromatic wings but after observing it more closely, I realized the body was not fuzzy like a moth and that no self-respecting moth would be so active with the sun blazing down on it. I narrowed it down to one of the skippers based on the shape of it's wings (plus its erratic, "bouncy" flight) and finally identified it after looking at actual pictures online. (The drawings in my guide can be somewhat misleading on wing patterns & actual coloring.)

I still have not been able to lure a White Peacock here and my attempts to attract Monarchs with milkweed plantings have all ended in failure (e.g., plant is destroyed by the caterpillars but the butterflies don't stick around afterwards). Speaking of plant destruction, something is making a go at eating my bouganvillea that I can't find other than the evidence of the huge holes in the leaves. I suspect grasshoppers or maybe snails.  On the plus side, the orchid and passion flower both seem to have recovered from their recent bouts of serving as dinner for someone. The orchid is actually blooming again already. Hopefully the bougainvillea is as lucky.

8.11.2010

countdown to full-time student: 10 days

I spent the day yesterday over at USF for orientation (yes, an entire day - from 9 in the morning until 5:30 - let me tell you that that is a *very* long day of a lot of repeated information.) The afternoon session was for the Lib Sci program and it was good to meet the professors and get a better feel for the people I've been emailing & talking to via phone. The student organizations seem to be very active which is also good since I've been worried about too much alone time with so much of the program online. Brown bag lunches every Wednesday and all kinds of things to do scheduled from sporting events to canoeing trips to museums.

As a result of all I learned, I came home and completely reorganized my classes for fall, switching to get another core class under my belt and signing up for one that looks like it will be challenging but very rewarding: Human Rights Librarianship. I just looked through the syllabus and the class requires participating in one of the local human rights groups and submitting a paper to one of the major publications as a large part of the grade. Which is very cool since the work will be done for something real and not just another paper that lives only on my hard drive but also makes me feel a bit intimidated.

It's certainly going to make the first few weeks challenging as there is a lot of reading and interaction required even in the first two weeks and my house will be filled up with 8-9 people (!) but hopefully I can work ahead a bit since she has everything online already.

Only a few more days of work now to go! I can't believe how much I'm looking forward to the start of a new school year ;)