Botanist Edith Wallace used a hand lens, or loupe, to see plants up-close on our guided plant walk this past Sunday.

Congrats to Matt and Mimi for IDing the tool correctly.

Don Torino, who leads so many of the guided walks that the Meadowlands Commission and the Bergen County Audubon Society offer each walk, has a new column on Pipevine Swallowtails on wildnewjersey.tv.

Don writes:

Long ago, this most elegant of butterflies was a much more common sight than it is today. This is because their host plant – the the Pipevine (Aristolochia) – is the only plant that the Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar will use!

About a hundred years ago, the Pipevine graced the porches and trellises of many homes, but as it fell in of favor the Pipevine Swallowtail, it fell in numbers. This butterfly has become hard to find and concentrated in small locations, including the Greenbrook Sanctuary in Bergen County.

We also had a Pipevine Swallawtail at DeKorte last summer, in mid-July.

The link to Don's column is here.

The link to our blog post on the Pipevine Swallowtail is here.

Steve Buckingham reports:

I thought you might like to know that the fountain in the center of the butterfly garden was quite the place to be for a few minutes late Saturday afternoon.  First a lone Gray Catbird thought he would clean himself up:

Then two Cedar Waxwings crashed the party… Thanks, Steve!)