Butterfly Photography: Passion Plus Patience
Pierella helvetia incanescense, Finca Cantaros
“It’s the exhilaration when you finally get the shot.” So answers graphic designer Liz Allen of Concepcion in our county of Coto Brus, Costa Rica, when I asked her what drives her. She spends hours waiting for perfect conditions of light and no wind in which to pursue her passion: photographing butterflies in their natural habitat. There is almost a tenderness in the way she responds to a butterfly that shows up during our interview. Liz leaps up as if nothing could be as important as observing where this butterfly is landing and how its flight resumes, up, down and sideways, testing leaf and flower surfaces as if choreographed by evolutionary strings. In seconds it disappears, absorbed by the morning sun and by the flowering bushes around Liz’s home.
Sulphur Butterfly, Phoebis philea, Finca Cantaros
Liz, her husband and young child left secure lives in Arizona a few years ago to
Liz Allen soon after learning her Kickstarter campaign was funded
pursue their dreams of creative work, telecommuting and freelance entrepreneurship in a healthy environment. And now fulfillment comes in a form that Liz would never have imagined just a short time ago: a new self-published book coming off the presses later this year, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign for publication costs and associated rewards. Seventy individual investors made publishing Liz’s photos of 88 live butterflies (and many of their nectar and host plants) possible, not only in an attractive hardcover book, Pura Mariposa, but also in ebook, smart phone wallpaper, calendar and greeting card format.
Mesosemia carissima, Finca Cantaros, feasting on minerals in bird excrement
Liz credits our mutual friend, Alison Olivieri, president of the San Vito Bird Club and consummate naturalist, with being the perfect mentor for the project. “She tricked me into arriving at the mental place where I really thought I could do this.” Another friend suggested a kids’ guide to butterflies, an idea now moving from the back to the front of Liz’s creative mind. Liz consulted with Costa Rica’s foremost butterfly expert, Isidro Chacon, to be sure all butterfly identifications are accurate.
Heliconius doris viridis, Finca Cantaros
Throughout my years in the area I too have tried to photograph butterflies, and if I get one good one for every 30 shots or so, I consider myself lucky. Here are some of my best efforts, in tribute, to illustrate how delighted I am (as are all of Liz’s local friends) with her thrilling achievement. It will not only be an artistically beautiful picture book, but a very useful guide, showing both the dorsal and ventral wings of the butterflies.
I dedicate this post to Liz’s supreme dedication, to butterfly conservation, and to great mentors everywhere. When a mentor can drink the nectar of her prodigy’s success, it must be pretty sweet.
Siproeta stelenes biplagiata, known as the Malachite Butterfly, Finca Cantaros
Click here to order Liz Allen’s book or other related products.
Curious Cauliflory
Guarea sp. in the Mahoghany family, a native tree in the rain forest at Rancho Naturalista, Turrialba, Costa Rica
A botanical adaptation that exists in temperate and arid woodlands, but is much more common in tropical forests, cauliflory literally means “stem flower”, or the curious phenomenon of flowers growing directly out of the bark of woody trunks and limbs. We are, of course, more accustomed to seeing flowers growing out of buds at the end of leafy new growth on trees or bushes. In Costa Rica, my encounters with examples of cauliflory have been more frequent than I realized: a recent review of my photo files revealed cauliflory as a fascination of mine for some time.
Calabash, the native Gourd Tree, called Jicaro in Costa Rica (Crescentia cujete)
One of my heroes, Dan Janzen (see previous Foto Diarist post on caterpillars), posited along with his colleague, P.S. Martin, that cauliflory existed since pre-Pleistocene times (2.6 million to 11,600 years ago) in the bat-pollinated calabash tree (commonly seen in two gourd species native to Costa Rica), and that the fruits were probably eaten–and their seeds dispersed–by elephant-like mammals, now extinct, called gomphotheres.
In evolutionary terms, there are reasons cauliflorous trees and shrubs have successfully survived the ages: their flowers are visited by many different animal species, including birds, arboreal mammals, bats and insects. It is apparently the accessibility of the flowers and seed-producing fruits that accounts for cauliflory’s persistence: in many instances, the tree or shrub grows to heights well below the forest canopy, so the pollinator or frugivore (fruit eater) doesn’t have to climb or fly very high. According to plant evolutionist G. Ledyard Stebbins, the adaptive importance of cauliflory appears to be primarily associated with cross-pollination. Since most species’ flowers are not self-pollinated, they must be visited by animals, birds or insects, and if more than one species is involved, so much the better. Tropical researchers, especially entomologists, have learned that insects of rain forests are distributed in horizontal layers at various heights above the ground. In many cauliflorous species, such as Theobroma cacao, from which we get chocolate, it is the
Flowers of Theobroma cacao growing from main trunk of a small tree at Finca Cantaros. Cacao is pollinated by Ceratopogonid midges in the order Diptera. I believe the insects seen on the flower stem are aphids.
Theobroma cacao, with immature pod growing on trunk a few feet from the ground. When dried and ground, the seeds produce chocolate. Note tiny flower buds, upper left.
insect fauna crawling and flying near ground level that performs much of the pollination. Tiny midges do the primary work for the cacao, but other crawling insects are believed to be involved.
Especially common cases of cauliflory in the new and old world tropics are found in edible fruits: jackfruit, breadfruit, star fruit, figs, cherimoya, soursop, some water apples, and one species of papaya, to name a few.
At Finca Cántaros, we take particular pleasure from our small orchard of Jaboticaba (Plinia cauliflora), a shrub native to Brazil. The delicious dark cherry-like fruits are abundant on the trunk and limbs around late March and early April, when I enjoy making beautiful purple sorbets and smoothies.
February flowers of Jaboticaba tree
April fruits of Jaboticaba tree, Finca Cantaros
The Cannonball Tree, Couroupita guianensis. Large flowers develop on woody stalks on thick bark of the main trunk and limbs. The round fruits are heavy and grow to 8-10 inches in diameter as high as 100 feet. Native to South America and Trinidad, this immense and magnificent specimen is on the big island of Hawaii, photographed at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. It is pollinated by bats and Carpenter bees.
Note: A Chinese Proverb says that calling things by their proper names is the beginning of wisdom. This suggests that if you know the correct name for an animal, plant or even a plumber’s tool, you narrow the distance between that being or object and yourself. Latin names are more accurate than popular names, so I will be using both at times in my posts, but the former in moderation. Some of my readers may find Latin names an interruption in the flow of the reading; others may want scientific names for everything. I’ll be trying to find a good middle ground on this issue.
References:
Limoncello (Siparuna thecaphora) a native shrub at forest edges whose fruits are food for many bird species
Five Decades with Tropical Fruit, A Personal Journey, by William F. Whitman, published by Quisqualis Books in cooperation with Fairchild Tropical Garden, 2001.
Newsletter, Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, August 2014. (Not available on line).
Armstrong, W.P., 1998. The Truth about Cauliflory, accessed 8/28/15.
Daniel Janzen, Costa Rican Natural History, 1983. University of Chicago Press, Chicago (pp. 81-83).
Gray-headed Tanager: Ant Swarm Follower
On consecutive mornings in June in the Finca Cántaros forest I encountered Gray-headed Tanagers (Eucometis pencillata) accompanying army-ants as they moved through the leaf litter. Ever active and constantly twitching their tails and wings as they searched for insects escaping the ant swarm, they are a challenge to photograph, especially in the forest shadows. The birds stayed low, going from branch to branch within two to five feet above the forest floor and, when spotting a prey, landing among the ants to catch the grasshopper, beetle, fly and such. It seemed my efforts to get close to them hardly interrupted their determined feeding activities. I was also quite intent in my focus, and at one propitious instant forgot I was standing in an ant swarm. Of course a few stings on my ankles made me leap out of my crouched place, startling the birds, but not for long.
Gray-headed Tanager on forest floor following ants
Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean’s Field Guide, The Birds of Costa Rica mentions that Gray-headed Tanagers follow not only army-ants, but also White-faced Capuchin Monkeys! The tanagers wait on low branches below active monkeys and sally out for insects as the monkeys disturb the foliage above.
Most other tanager species in our mid-elevation southern Pacific region are easily observed because they spend considerable time foraging for fruits and insects at forest edges, in sunlit trees and gardens, and they are avid consumers of papaya and bananas at our feeders. However the Gray-headed Tanager’s habits are completely different: they spend most of their time in dense forest understory either in pairs or mixed flocks. Interestingly, it is the only member of its genus Eucometis.
Gray-headed Tanager watching for insects escaping army-ants
Although I don’t see the Gray-headed Tanager very often on our property, that’s probably because I am not spending enough time in the forest. It is a year-round resident and is considered common in the lowlands and foothills of the southern Pacific slope, from sea level to our elevation of 4000 ft (1200m). The Cornell Lab of Ornithology web page on Neotropical Birds describes the Gray-headed Tanager as having conical bills with large, rounded notches on the upper mandible. Research has shown this small bird (6½”) can live up to ten years.
Not considered endangered, the Gray-headed Tanager consists of seven subspecies that are found in forested habitats from southern Mexico to Northern Paraguay.
To attract more army-ants so we might see other interesting ant bird behavior in our forest, we would have to acquire significantly more forested land beyond our seven hectares of mixed gardens and forest. Sigh….not likely.
To hear a 12-second recording from Xeno-Canto of the high-pitched, squeaky song of the Gray-headed Tanager, click here and an audio player will open in a new tab/window. Then click the play ( ►) button. Close that tab/window to return to this post.
Additional reference: A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica by F. Gary Stiles and Alexander F. Skutch.
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