WK%S coaches and caboose parked on the south end of the main line seemed a bit unusual when I arrived Saturday afternoon to look for butterflies in the field next to the siding where they usually sit. The butterfly business was a flop that day, hardly anything remained in bloom except Queen Anne's Lace and that only attracts less photogenic insects. I got two fair images of an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail female and som fuzzy, poorly-lit picture of a fritillary, probably Meadow Fritillary, but I can't be sure. And, as I was leaving the village of Kempton, I got a fair shot of a female American Goldfinch. But the railroad activity caught most of my attention.

 
Locomotive 602, still painted in the colors of the former Lehigh & New England Railroad, sits in front of the WK&S repair shops.

 
Engineer waits for signal to pull the completed train to the platform. Locomotive 7258 is a diesel built by General Electric.

 
Coaches separate as the locomotive pulls the completed train away from the unneeded cars,

 
Kempton station platform as the completed train is being pulled into position, ready for Sunday's two scheduled runs to Wannamakers.

 
Zabulon Skipper - Poanes zabulon - female - the markings of which are quite different from those of the male posted earlier.

 
Peck's Skipper - shown here in a different pose from the one posted earlier. Here we see most of the upperside wing markings.

 

Wood Duck - Aix sponsa - female - this juvenile from this year's crop at Tilden Industrial Park was swimming alone very near to the road allowing me to get a few good shots. They mostly keep to the far end of the pond which is a bit beyond the effective range of my 70-300 mm lens. There was at least one other species of duck there Saturday, but my pictures of those were not nearly as good as this one.

 
Great Blue Heron and friend. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what that other bird is, the one in the reeds. Click on the photo for the large version and look below the heron's neck. It may be an immature heron of the same type, but in some ways looks more like an American Bittern. It never came out in the open while I was at the industrial park and I didn't notice it until I started editing Saturday's photographs.

 
Great Blue Heron standing on one leg and stretching out one wing. This is one of the rare photos that I put through the mill altering brightness, contrast, hue and saturation. The pose captured here was so unusual that I wanted to share it in spite of over exposure. Click on the image to see it full size and you will note that it is the left wing which has been brought over the back so that the underside can be scratched with the right foot. Don't try this at home!

 
Least Skipper - Ancyloxypha numitor - is among the smallest butterflies - wingspan about an inch, give or take a couple sixteenths. They are most often found clinging to blades of grass, perched with hindwings extended and forewings tented as I showed in an earlier post. Look for them in wet grassy areas - the best place I have found to see them is an overgrown roadside ditch with a nearly constant flow of water a quarter mile or so from the Maiden Creek.

 
Great Blue Heron - Ardea herodias - stalks the stagnant water of the north end of the ruins of the Schuylkill Canal in Hamburg last Tuesday. Saturday, I saw at least five of them working waters not covered with algae.

 

Spicebush Swallowtails - Papilio troilus - male (left) and female - share the same flower in Blue Mountain Wildlife's butterfly garden about a week ago. This continues to be one of the most abundant species of true butterfly in the garden this month.

 
Zabulon Skipper - Poanes zabulon - male - the first good view from this angle, the earlier ones were always found nectaring with wings folded straight up which only shows the underside of the hindwing and the tip of the forewing. This posture and angle gives a good view of the upperside of the hindwings and a fair view of the upperside of one forewing.

 
Common Buckeye - Junonia coenia - a rather good view of the upper wing surfaces. Not the first sighted or the first posted here, but the first seen in the garden at the Kernsville Dam.

 
Eastern Tailed Blue - Everes comyntas - female - with a curious defect in the right forewing. A part of the wing near the apex seems never to have fully extended. I have seen a lot of wear and damage to wings of butterflies, but never another like this, but a fellow enthusiast at the BugGuide website tells me he has seen this deformity several times, always in the same part of a forewing.

Sachem - Atalopedes campestris - female - found this small skipper at the Blue Mountain Wildlife butterfly garden on August 11. I have fallen behind in adding images here, but not in taking them. Look for many more to be posted tonight and tomorrow.

 

Schuylkill River - looking downstream from a point on the shore near the butterfly garden. For those who know the area, there is a path leading from the parking area at the garden. At the clearing, take the path on the right and it will, with only a little difficulty, bring you to this spot. The path to the left at the clearing brings you out just below the dam which is a popular spot for anglers but can also be reached by a footpath from the parking area at the dam itself.

 
Autumn appears to have come early this year for one bough of a tree on the road to the Kernsville Dam.

 
Silver-Spotted Skippers - although both sexes look the same, I'm betting the one in front is a female. I say this because the one behind (no doubt a male) followed it from flower to flower to flower.

 
Sandals abandoned at Kernsville Dam. Most of the debris that marks the passage of people through this relatively unspoiled area is there for rather obvious reasons - no one takes home broken bottles, beer cans tend to be left behind even when they are in a garbage bag as I found in one place, and so on. But these sandals - a left and a right, shown just as I found them - are a bit of a puzzle because they don't match. Did someone wear mismatched sandals to the river bank and walk out barefoot? Did two people arrive wearing sandals and one leave barefoot and the other with a mismatched pair? Or, did two come wearing sandals and each go away wearing only one? A puzzle anyway you slice it.

 
American Goldfinch - female - at the buttterfly garden on Sunday. There were about a dozen goldfinches in evidence on that visit.

 
Fisherman chooses a precarious perch from which to try his hand at angling at the Kernsville Dam.

 

Spicebush Swallowtails have been by far the most prevalent species among the larger butterflies at the Blue Mountain Wildlife, Inc. butterfly garden in the last few weeks. Here we see three males in flight vying for the attention of the female nectaring below.

 
Monarch and Orange Sulphur seen recently at the garden. This continues to be a poorer season than last for Monarchs.

 

Wood Ducks were about the only item of interest at the Tilden Industrial Park yesterday. The water level has risen several inches in the last few days, but the diversity of wildlife on display has diminished. There were at least a dozen ducks there, but they keep pretty much to the side farthest from the street which affords the only vantage point.