Can you name the butterfly species in this beautiful photo by Harvey Tomlinson from 7-21-12 at Bunker Pond, Cape May Point State Park? Answer below.
Thirty-four observers contributed a truly remarkable total of 3210 reports, the most we have ever had in one month by more than a thousand. (The previous record seems to be July 2011, when we totaled 2100 reports.)
We added three new species for the year and totaled 67 species for the month (two more than the 65 of July 2011).
FOYs for July
Three species were new for the year and one of them (checkered white) new for our five years of logging:
dion skipper, 7-5-12
checkered white, 7-25-12
meadow fritillary, 7-27-12
As of 7-31-12, we have recorded 86 species for the year, very close to the total we had last year at this time, when we found our 86th species, hoary-edged skipper, on 8-3-11.
Our species list for July 2012:
pipevine swallowtail
black swallowtail
eastern tiger swallowtail
spicebush swallowtail
checkered white
cabbage white
clouded sulphur
orange sulphur
cloudless sulphur
little yellow
American copper
coral hairstreak
Edward’s hairstreak
banded hairstreak
striped hairstreak
juniper hairstreak
white m hairstreak
gray hairstreak
red-banded hairstreak
eastern tailed-blue
summer azure
American snout
variegated fritillary
meadow fritillary
pearl crescent
question mark
eastern comma
mourning cloak
American lady
painted lady
red admiral
common buckeye
red-spotted purple
viceroy
hackberry emperor
tawny emperor
Appalachian brown
Georgia satyr
little wood satyr
common wood-nymph
monarch
silver-spotted skipper
southern cloudywing
northern cloudywing
Hayhurst’s scallopwing
Horace’s duskywing
wild indigo duskywing
common checkered-skipper
common sootywing
swarthy skipper
least skipper
fiery skipper
Peck’s skipper
tawny-edged skipper
crossline skipper
northern broken-dash
little glassywing
sachem
Delaware skipper
rare skipper
mulberry wing
zabulon skipper
Aaron’s skipper
broad-winged skipper
dion skipper
dun skipper
salt marsh skipper
The stars of the show of the month were the Pierids. Checkered whites made Salem County the place to be in the last week of July and the flight may now continue into August (see earlier posts — below — for details).
And meanwhile, little yellows are giving us the best flight in years, at least in Cumberland and Cape May Counties. Let’s hope it continues into fall and pushes north as well.
A little yellow photo’d by Will Kerling 7-29-12, Cape May Co.
Contributors in July 2012:
Cynthia Allen, Wendy Allen, Dave Amadio, Jesse Connor, Jack Connor, Mike Crewe, Joe Demko, Rhea Doherty, Deb Dowdell, Jim Dowdell, Kathy Flynn, Amy Gaberlein, Sam Galick, Jean Gutsmuth, Chris Herz, Brian Johnson, Sandra Keller, Will Kerling, Tiffany Kersten, Tony Klock, Chip Krilowicz, Tony Leukering, Mary Mizener, Michael O’Brien, Brendan O’Connor, Bridget O’Connor, Mike Russell, Bill Schuhl, Edie Schuhl, Clay Sutton, Pat Sutton, Harvey Tomlinson, Chris Tonkinson, and David Wright.
Thanks to each of you.
The full compilation in pdf form is here. Hit the plus sign for easier viewing.
Keep exploring and reporting!
jc
…Oh, Yeah, the Puzzle Answer
The butterfly in Harvey T’s photo is a cabbage white, believe it or not. Will Kerling identified it, David Wright confirmed that ID and noted, “The variation that shows up in Cape May is not that frequent. It [also] appears in the imported population in Hawaii.” He passed along the photo to Art Shapiro at UC Davis, “one of the world’s experts on pierids. He called it a very white summer phenotype male P. rapae.”