This past week my wife and I were up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We stayed in a cabin part way up the mountain near "Warbler Road." Warbler Road is a group of gravel roads leading from the James River up to Sunset Fields on the Blue Ridge Parkway and is well known for the diverse birding, especially northern warblers and other song birds found at the higher elevations. Finding a cabin so close to the start of Warbler Road made morning birding easier. However, that is a slow way to get to and from the parkway. I had noticed that the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail book recommended taking another gravel road back to the parkway after reaching the bottom instead of heading out to the interstate. That road was right next to our cabin so we gave it a try and it was a beautiful and relaxing drive. A little slow but not as windy or treacherous as the main road and it avoided the interstate. Plus, it was about 10 minutes quicker.
On the first trip up, my wife noticed several wild flowers on the side the road and it was easy to pull over and investigate (we passed 2 cars in the three trips along the entire length). One that was particularly interesting is this four-leaved milkweed (Asclepias quadrifolia).
It has been a dry May throughout Virginia but that partially brought one day when a few afternoon storms built up. We largely stayed dry and the roads quickly dried out. But on the drive back to the cabin we saw a kaleidoscope of butterflies (yes, that seems to be the accepted group name, I looked it up on the all-knowing Internet). We think that the rain must of brought some minerals up to the surface and they were all drinking them in. It was a striking sight with nearly twenty tiger swallowtails all grouped together. As we stood there, a few started flying around but the rest largely ignored us. And then a truck drove by and flushed them all up into the air. It was a serendipitous find that I won't soon forget.
Happy Butterflying!
