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Importance of butterflies to Coastal Georgia discussed
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The February meeting of the Richmond Hill Garden Club was all about butterflies.
Theresa Thom, aquatic ecologist with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Inventory and Monitoring Network, illustrated the butterflies most likely to be found in Southeast Georgia and the nearby Lowcountry of South Carolina.
Using slides taken in the area, especially in the Savannah Wildlife Refuge, Thom explained how to identify these butterflies, what plants to use to attract them, and how important they are to the ecology of Coastal Georgia.
Thom presented some facts about butterflies. There are 15,000-20,000 butterfly species worldwide, with 717 of these native to lands north of Mexico and 170 of these found in South Carolina and 160 in Georgia. Emphasizing that an interest in butterflies is not new, she noted that collecting butterflies as a hobby goes back at least to the 1400s. She demonstrated butterfly basics, including their body parts, the way to distinguish them from moths, and their life cycle that involves a complete metamorphosis: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly.
Butterflies critical to the coastal area include fritillaries, swallowtails, hairstreaks, blues, sulphurs, whites, skippers, question marks and monarchs. Some of these are more numerous than others; some are easily found during certain times of the year only; and some are more at-risk than others.
In terms of crucial plants, Thom identified the coastal milkweed species as vital to monarchs partly because of when these plants flower, the native passion vine, and the wax myrtle plant found throughout this area. These and other native plants and nonnative varieties favored by butterflies and caterpillars are available locally.
Thom also emphasized the importance of a diversity of plants in their flowering and nonflowering states. It’s not enough to provide nectar for the butterflies: it’s important to provide materials (usually leaves) for butterflies to lay their eggs, food for the caterpillars, areas where butterflies can rest, protected areas for a chrysalis to mature into a butterfly, brush piles for over-wintering, and puddling spots for butterflies to obtain moisture and minerals from the soil. A patch of grassy meadow, for example, can shelter hundreds of butterflies and provide food for their caterpillars.
Thom stressed the importance of diverse plantings with flowers that blossom in different seasons. She noted that gardeners, especially vegetable gardeners, might not always like what caterpillars do to their plants. However, the importance of butterflies and their precarious existence should be enough to encourage everyone to plant extras for them and to move caterpillars if they are destroying prized plants rather than using pesticides or relying on pest-resistant varieties of plants that might not be friendly to butterflies.
Thom offered some pointers for finding and observing butterflies. She advised everyone to look for nectar-rich plants and muddy areas on sunny days and to move slowly and avoid casting shadows. She also cautioned searchers to look for movement and be aware of low-growing plants to larval plants (such as dill or parsley for black swallowtail butterfly caterpillars) are easy to incorporate into any garden and will almost always attract butterflies. She also recommended getting involved in butterfly counts in the area.
Thom encouraged those interested in observing butterflies to visit the butterfly garden near the visitor’s center of the Savannah Wildlife Refuse located on Highway 17 across the Talmadge Bridge in South Carolina. For additional information, contact Thom at 843-784-6262.

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Later yall, its been fun
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This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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