Mud-puddling at Fall Creek (Four Video Clips)
Two Oregon Swallowtail Butterflies "mud-puddling" at Fall Creek.
I mentioned that I took some video clips of the swarms of butterflies we encountered on our hike up Fall Creek last month.
Here ya go, four short video clips of Oregon swallowtail butterflies (the official Oregon state insect!). When it looks like they are feeding from the mud, that is pretty much exactly what they are doing. They suck liquid nutrients out of the organic mud slushie :) This has a term, "mud-puddling".
Entering the Butterfly Zone
I was walking carefully on the rocks with @thingtwo in the frame backpack carrier.
Moving as slowly and smoothly as I could (with a kid in a frame backpack on) I crouched down and extended my arm towards a pair of butterflies. I got very close while filming this clip before they flew away:
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Nature at its finest, those colours, bet it was fun trying to follow them flying being zoomed in.
yeah, and the sun was glaring off my phone so I had pretty much no idea what I was doing :) I was actually surprised when I went back and looked at the closeup clips that a couple of them turned out in decent focus for the most part.
Looks like they are trying hard not to get blown over haha
Yeah dude it is actually kind of crazy they can fly around out there in the wind :) Butterflies are pretty trippy when you really stop to think about it :)
I love butterflies (real fairies) and more than butterflies big moths,... well moths are butterflies too... but I'm concerned because we've had such a cold Spring, and now all of a sudden a sweltering hot Summer... and while last year they would literally flutter around me when walking, this year where I live it's difficult to spot one :(.... Hope they are just hatching late.
they are beautiful by the way by the creek... thanks for sharing
I trust they are just hatching late :) I have to confess that the large moths have always seduced me as well. We have a moth here we call the hummingbird moth (white lined sphinx moth). I am in love when she graces me with her presence :)
Aww she is beautiful. I found a carterpillar that was already motionless but exposed, put it in a box with some branches and we got one sphynx aftet a while. Moths are recurrent in my songs and art. Painting lits this days for the third album. There is something haunting about them. We have an inique species of Spanish Luna and I went to the reserve and none, nor ant common butterfly. We have heat all of a sudden after 110 days rainy days... So hope they are just late.
Thank you, Carl-the-adventurer, for taking us along on your hike and teaching this city boy a new term: mud-puddling.
Butterflies are magic -- like airborne flower petals...
nice! whenever i try to get these things they fly away b4 i get close
yeah it is tricky. For the close up clips I moved into the middle of a swarm and scared them away, but basically just froze in place with my camera out and ready until they calmed back down and started settling back down around me. Then I started filming :)
I like your post and the butterflies, but the most I like is @thingtwo in the backpack!!!! :-D