White Deer Twins on the Riverwalk

White Deer Twins on the Riverwalk
These rare white deer twins were born this summer and have found a safe home at Dan Daniel Park and on the Riverwalk
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My name is David Hoffman. I teach English and journalism at Averett University, but I have two side interests - writing and photography. I also enjoy walking daily with my English setter, Sadie, and my wife, Elizabeth, on the Danville, Virginia, Riverwalk. As a novice to studying nature, I am fascinated by the slightest facets of the great outdoors, but most of my pictures are of birds - I don't know a lot about them, but I am learning more and enjoying taking pictures of them daily. I also take pictures of plants, other animals, and insects. All pictures posted for each day were taken on the day of my blog entry.

Leave a comment if you have the time or e-mail me at dhoffman@averett.edu


CHECK OUT TIFFANY AND PATRIK'S WEDDING PICTURES (click picture below)

Saturday, July 17, 2010

BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE



(JULY 17, 2010) Last night on PBS there was a program out of North Carolina about butterflies and moths. I had often wondered what the difference was, and the expert lepidopteroligist (one who studies butterflies and moths - a new term for me, too) made it rather vaguely clear what the differences were.

He said that one of the main differences is that moths come out at night and butterflies come out during the day (well, he qualified that by saying, in most cases this is true). He also pointed out that the antennae of the butterflies have small balls on the tips (well, he qualified that by saying, in most cases this is true).

What I saw this morning were butterflies, I'm 100% sure. They were out in the day time and their antennae had small balls on the tips.

As the butterflies flittered among the flowers, Sadie seemed to be enthralled by the beauty. I just kept snapping pictures.

Later in the day Sadie and I went to Angler's Park after the heavy rain. We had walked about a half mile and saw large puddle. Sadie danced across the puddle and a butterfly, just like the ones we had seen this morning, flew up. Sadie immediately jumped at it, missed, jumped at it again, and missed again. This seems to be a day filled with butterflies, and when a day contains butterflies, it proves to be a beautiful day.



(CLICK ON PICTURE TO SEE THE ANGER OF THE BIRD MORE CLOSELY)

At about the same spot we had seen the butterflies, there was a mockingbird that wasn't too happy that we had stopped to watch the lovely insects in the tree. As often happens, mockingbirds are a bit temperamental - they have been known to dive-bomb passers-by and will, at least fuss at someone who has wandered too near the nest. This morning was no different, but this morning I captured the intolerance the bird showed for the two sojourners who had wandered too close to a nest.

We moved on since we didn't want to irritate it any more, and Sadie, who had once been dive-bombed by a mockingbird flying close to her head, was a little anxious and relieved when we finally continued our morning adventure.

Beautiful butterflies in a mimosa tree and an angry mockingbird in a poplar tree made for another good day on the Riverwalk.

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