Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged Canon 7D, Cercyonis pegala, Common Wood Nymph, Common Wood Nymph butterfly, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Tamron 18-400mm, Woodbridge VA on August 11, 2025| 3 Comments »
I was delighted to spot this Common Wood Nymph butterfly (Cercyonis pegala) during a recent visit to Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I love the distinctive yellow patches on its wings that make it pretty easy to identify.
Common Wood Nymphs usually like to hang around near the edges of the woods rather than in the fields that many butterflies seem to prefer and consequently I do not see this cool-looking butterfly very often.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 7D, Cercyonis pegala, Common Wood Nymph, Common Wood Nymph butterfly, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 180mm on July 9, 2023| 1 Comment »
I was delighted to spot this Common Wood Nymph butterfly (Cercyonis pegala) this past Wednesday at the edge of the hike-bike trail on the back side of Huntley Meadows Park, a county-run marshland park in Alexandria, Virginia. I love the distinctive yellow patch on its wing and its really cool eyes with vertical stripes. Common Wood Nymphs usually like to hang around near the edges of the woods rather than in the fields that many butterflies seem to prefer.
Generally I like to get the plane of the sensor of my camera sensor as close to parallel as possible with my subject, so that the entire subject is in focus. In this case, though, a large mass of thorny vines kept me from being able to get my desired shooting angle and consequently the focus on the left-hand side of the subject is a little soft. That being said, I am nonetheless pretty happy with this shot of a cool-looking butterfly that I don’t see very often.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged Canon 50D, Cercyonis pegala, Common Wood Nymph, Common Wood Nymph butterfly, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Tamron 180mm, Woodbridge VA on September 1, 2020| 19 Comments »
Is today the first day of a new season? It depends. If you use the meteorological calendar, today is the first day of autumn (or spring if you live in the Southern Hemisphere). If you use the astronomical calendar, however, you have to wait until the equinox on 22 September for summer (or winter) to end.
No matter how you calculate the seasons, we are already starting to see signs of transition. The weather is marginally cooler and some vegetation is dying off. It won’t be long before the leaves on the trees begin to change colors or, as is often the case, simply fall from the trees.
Many of the dragonflies and butterflies that I see are showing signs of wear and tear, with scratches on their bodies and tattered wings. While exploring Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge last week, I spotted several butterflies with somewhat unusual damage to their wings. The wings of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) in the first photo seem to be in almost pristine condition, except for the fact that one of the tails and a portion of the wing is gone. What could have caused that kind of damage?
The Common Wood Nymph (Cercyonis pegala) in the second image had similar damage, but it appears that the damage affected both of its wings. I can’t help but notice the straight lines and almost right angles of the edges of the missing wing sections of both of these butterflies. Could a bird have caused that damage? It is a bit of a mystery to me and I would welcome any insights that you might have about the cause of the injuries to these butterflies, which nonetheless seemed flying capable of flying.
Happy change of seasons—fall or spring, as applicable—if you live a place that uses the meteorological calendar.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged Canon 50D, Cercyonis pegala, Common Wood Nymph, Common Wood Nymph butterfly, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Tamron 180mm macro, Woodbridge VA on July 17, 2019| 6 Comments »
Yesterday I spotted this Common Wood Nymph butterfly (Cercyonis pegala) at the edge of a wooded area as I was exploring Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Although the colors of this butterfly are somewhat muted, I really like the distinctive yellow patch that makes it easy to identify.
When I first saw the butterfly, it was on the ground and initially I was disappointed when it flew up into a tree. Fortunately, it perched on a leaf that was at eye level and I was happy to be able to capture this image.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged Canon 50D, Cercyonis pegala, Common Wood Nymph, Common Wood Nymph butterfly, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Tamron 180mm, Woodbridge VA on July 10, 2018| 6 Comments »
The combination of springtime rain and summertime heat in our area has caused a real explosion of insects. Some of them, like deer flies and mosquitoes, mercilessly harass me when I go out with my camera, but a lot of them are amazingly beautiful, like this spectacular Common Wood Nymph butterfly (Cercyonis pegala) that I spotted this past weekend at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
Many woodland butterflies are rather drab in appearance and it is hard for me to identify their species. With the Common Wood Nymph, though, the yellow patch on the wings makes them almost instantly recognizable.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Cercyonis pegala, Common Wood Nymph, Common Wood Nymph butterfly, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 180mm on August 13, 2017| 4 Comments »
One of the little woodland butterflies that I see only rarely is the Common Wood Nymph (Cercyonis pegala). I was therefore pretty excited when I spotted this beauty on Friday while it was perched on a tree at Huntley Meadows Park. The yellow patch is so distinctive that it was pretty easy for me to identify this one, unlike so many other woodland butterflies that are mostly brown with different patterns and colors of eye spots on their wings.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Cercyonis pegala, Common Wood Nymph, Huntley Meadows Park, nymphomania, Tamron 180mm on September 22, 2016| 9 Comments »
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Butterflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, Cercyonis pegala, Common Wood Nymph, Huntley Meadows Park, nymph, Shakespeare on August 1, 2014| 15 Comments »
Chasing a nymph through the woods–it may sound like I was living out some fantasy as a character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I was only running after a butterfly, a Common Wood Nymph (Cercyonis pegala).
As is usually the case, I had never seen this “Common” butterfly before, but the large, yellow-ringed eyespots on the forewings make it pretty distinctive and I had no trouble finding it in an on-line identification guide.
I chased after the butterfly for quite some time before it finally came to a stop and perched on a tree. I am not sure why, but the butterfly chose to perch upside down. When I processed my images, I couldn’t decided if I should flip the image 180 degrees or not. Ultimately I decided that the flipped image, which is the first one, looked more “normal.”
Which one do you think works better, the flipped image, i.e. the first one, or the one with the original perspective, i.e. the second one?
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 