Mid-May Report

Posted on May 16, 2012 by connorj

Up close and personal view of little wood satyr photo’d by Will Kerling at Lizard Tail Swamp Preserve, 5-14-12, a species new for 2012, as of 5-8-12.

Halfway through the month, we have recorded 50 species for May (and 55 species for the year).

New for 2012 and found in May are:

little yellow, 5-6-12
little wood-satyr, 5-8-12
viceroy, 5-11-12
northern cloudywing, 5-11-12
southern cloudywing, 5-12-11
crossline skipper, 5-13-12
Hayhurst’s scallopwing, 5-14-12
Aaron’s skipper, 5-15-12

Our pace this month is slightly ahead of last May’s pace, when in the first fifteen days of the month we found 46 species.

Seen this year in the first half of May, but not during that period in 2011:

little yellow, painted lady, Hayhurst’s scallopwing, least skipper, Peck’s skipper, crossline skipper, Aaron’s skipper.

The 2012 little yellow is a first-ever May occurrence (as far as we know), and painted lady was very scarce throughout 2011 (only 16 reports all year). The five skippers on this list all appeared in May 2011, but weeks later (Hayhurst’s on 5/21, least on 5/24, Peck’s on 5/19, crossline and Aaron’s on 5/26).

Seen last year (May 1-May 15, 2011) but not yet this May:

hoary elfin, gray hairstreak, eastern comma, common checkered skipper

Eastern comma has been difficult to find this year. In 2011 we had 11 reports in the first half of May, totaling fifteen individuals. We had a few reports of the species last month (April, 2012), but this month we have none so far — although we have some anglewing, sp. that might have been commas, of course.

By contrast, question marks, at least partly because they were involved in the big red admiral/Am lady flight of late April/early May, have been far more common this year than last year. Between May 1 and May 15, 2011, we tallied 22 reports of question marks and an estimated 40 individuals. In the same period in 2012, we recorded 73 reports and an estimated 4622 individuals. In fact, our total of question marks for the first half of May dwarfs our total for all of last year (603 individuals).

Missing gray hairstreak for the month so far is interesting. Could the species be “between broods” at the moment? We had ten reports last month (April, 2012), but had none in the first fifteen days this month.

Interestingly, we almost missed gray hairstreak for the final fifteen days of May, 2011 — after seven reports in May up to 5/15/11 when Will K spotted two (“both rags”), we went without a single report of the species until Will found another on 5/31/11, the last day of the month.

In 2010 the pattern seems similar: 7 reports of gray hairstreak between 4/15/10 and 5/7/10, then no more until 6/1/10 (a gap of three weeks+). In 2009 we had 3 reports between 4/15 and 5/23/09, and then none until 6/13/09 (another gap of three weeks).

Is the spring brood of gray hairstreak discernible in this way — marked by a handful of early reports, and then a pause, before the summer broods appear in good numbers?

Keep exploring, everyone!

jc

Viceroy photo’d by Will Kerling at Lizard Tail Swamp Preserve, 5-14-12, a species new for 2012 as of 5-11-12

Posted in First Emergences, Looking At Our Data, Lycaenids | Comments Off on Mid-May Report

Add Another for April

Posted on May 10, 2012 by connorj

Our count for April 2012 (see April Compilation) has gained another species: dusted skipper (above) found and photo’d by Bill Grant near Bevan Wildlife Management Area, Dividing Creek on 4-29-12.

Nice job tracking down this hard-to-find, spring-only species, Bill!

That addition gives us 46th species for the month of April and 47 for the year, as of 4/30/12.

While the admirals, ladies, and question marks were stealing the show last week, Michael O’Brien found another hard-to-find species (and first time spring species) at Tarkiln Pond in Cape May County on 5-6-12: little yellow. That’s number 48 for the year.

Other sightings of little yellow have been reported in North Jersey (Tom Halliwell in Sussex County, fide Jim Springer) and Pennsylvania. Does anyone know of a previous record for the species in the spring in New Jersey? It is generally considered a southern stray, generally arriving in mid to late summer (and still rare then north of Cape May County). Were those widely scattered yellows somehow caught up in that big flight of admirals, ladies, and q-marks?

Keep exploring and reporting, everyone!

jc

Posted in First Emergences, Looking At Our Data, Pierids, Skippers | 1 Comment

More Observations of May 4th Flight

Posted on May 7, 2012 by connorj

Will Kerling managed to capture all three species of the migrating flocks in one image at Lizard Tail Swamp Preserve.

It’s hard to keep up with the red admiral/Am lady/question mark flight, as it is continuing. For the most recent reports, please go to our log. You can also add your own observations — there on the log or as a comment here in our blog. (To join our observing team, click on “Here’s Our Live 2012 Log” to the right of this post.)

In follow-up to the Saturday morning notes below, some other observations of the great flight on Friday, May 4:

Don Freiday on his blog, The Freiday Bird Blog, described the count he and his fellow Forsythe NWR employee Tiffany Kersten conducted that evening (May 4).

Bear with me while we do some math.

I handed Tiffany Kersten a clicker on the way home from work today, to click butterflies along the Garden State Parkway from the exit for Forsythe NWR where we work (mile 40) to mile 6, our exit. There’s been an amazing movement of butterflies, primarily Red Admirals, and it should be quantified. The butterflies have been apparently flying up from the south, coming in off the ocean, and flying in a generally west-northwest direction.

Tiff clicked 652 butterflies in the 34 miles, or 19 per mile. Let’s say 20 to keep the math simple.

We figure we had a three-second window to count individual butterflies from a vehicle moving at 70 mph. In other words, a car three seconds behind us would be counting new butterflies. In other words, 400 butterflies per minute per mile were crossing the Parkway.

Let’s say this movement extended from Forsythe to Cape May, about 40 miles. That’s 16,000 butterflies per minute, 960,000 per hour.

Okay, it’s not quite a million. But if the movement lasted three hours (or more, as it apparently did) several million butterflies passed through southern NJ today!

Jim Dowdell counted from his backyard in Villas, near the Delaware Bayshore:

“They were moving northward at 300 to 340 per minute between 3:15 pm and 4:15 pm.”

Dave Amadio was in Belleplain State Park:

What began as a day for birding Belleplain turned into an expérience that I must admit I had not prepared for. I was aware of a good flight of Admirals taking place, but was not expecting this type of spectacle. With every step I would flush two or three on the powerline cut in Belleplain. In the overgrown field off of Jake’s Landing Rd., my expérience was similar to what Pat Sutton described from Goshen. The wild cherry trees were just dripping with Admirals, Am ladies, with some Q-Marks. The spectacle had me in such awe that my counting suffered greatly.

As I headed furthur south on Rt47 the Admirals were just blasting by in groups of 5, 10, 15 and more. From Dennisville to South Dennis, I was hitting the wave of Admirals head on. Not sure how many ended their flight by making contact with the grille of my truck. With the Friday afternoon on-slaught of shore bound travellers, It is most certain that thousands of Admirals and other sp. had their journey cut short.

As I crossed the toll bridge at Grassy Sound to Nummy’s Island, I drove through a cloud of butterlies, mostly Admirals. As I scoped the marsh for birds, I counted a flight of 150 butterflies per min.

Barbara and Jack Miller watched the flight in their backyard in Petersburg (Cape May County):

“We [averaged] about 12-15 per minute for hours. How often can one say, ‘Oh yes, I had 4 or 5 thousand butterflies in my yard today’?”

Shawn & Jessica Wainwright counted from their backyard in Ocean County:

“From 8am – 7pm we counted 100+ every 3 minutes which comes out to 2000 every hour!”

Chris Herz, Jean Gutsmuth, and Denise Bittle were butterflying in Warren Grove on Friday, then headed home (as reported by Chris):

Driving home along Rte. 70 (east to west) from Warren Grove and when we were stopped at each traffic light, Marlton to Cherry Hill we counted 6-12 red admirals flying above us at each traffic light stop! This was around 2:30 to 3 pm. Luckily they were above the traffic.

When at home I was counting 5-6 pm and counted 36 red admirals flying through our yard. A couple of American Ladies too.

Jennifer Hanson in Plainsboro (Middlesex Co) noted on New Jersey Birds:

I stepped outside for an hour to count butterflies… The results:

136 northbound butterflies, 20 southbound or undecided butterflies. I’ve been back inside for over an hour and a half since my impromptu
count and butterflies are still streaming past.

Of the northbound butterflies, 116 were unidentified, 14 were Red Admirals, one was an American Lady, one was a Question Mark/comma and 3 were not Red Admirals (i.e., probably either a lady or a punctuation mark sp.).

Observers north of NJ are also seeing the flights. Sue Gregoire of the Kestrel Haven Avian Migration Observatory in Burdett, NY reported on the New York
Birding list serve:

“NY State has been overrun with migrating Red Admiral butterflies going north. All over the state hundreds are passing members of the NYS butterfly listserv every hour. We’re all wondering how widespread this phenomenon is.”

Past big flights in southern NJ (most recently, July 2001 and June/July 2007) have lasted more than a week, so we might not yet have seen the largest daily flight.

So, keep watching, everyone! Thanks to all who have sent in reports. Keep ’em coming!

jc

5/10/12 Update: Pat Sutton has passed along this note from Angi Walters, regarding the 5/4 flight:

“Sad to say, but I can report that there was a massive die-off of these wonderful migrants along the coast. A co-worker approached me yesterday to ask me about it, because she had been running along the beach in Brigantine and saw hundreds upon hundreds being washed in by the waves.”

Posted in Migration, Nymphalids | 4 Comments

From South to North: Spectacular!

Posted on May 5, 2012 by connorj

Red admiral, photo by Pat Sutton in Goshen (Cape May County) 5/4/12.

Hey, everyone: Whew! Can this continue?

If you are new to our log and blog and have come here in response to the red admiral, American lady, and question mark flight of yesterday (May 4), that’s great. Please see the post beneath this one about three ways to note your impressions of the flight.

The flight has been building for more than a week with a mini-peak on May 1, followed by a temporary hold because of gray/damp weather May 2 and 3 (which probably contributed to yesterday’s explosion), and then yesterday May 4, one of the most spectacular flights of the last ten or twenty years (at least).

The flight will probably continue today, so this account is just a rough, temporary sketch. If you get out today, please try to get some estimates of numbers, flight direction, and percentages of the three species involved. We have been calling it a “red admiral flight,” but American ladies and question marks are also coming through in very high numbers.

A quick selection of a few notes that have come in (please send more):

Tom Reed in Stone Harbor Point estimated 55,000 butterflies passing him:

Remarkable afternoon flight– estimated total from 4 hours of observation. 50-100/min from 12pm through 1pm, then gradual increase, reaching ~200/min by about 3:15pm. Definitive peak shortly before 4pm, with minute-long counts of 700+ passing fixed point as viewed through binoculars. Flight tapered along outer beach once sea breeze developed shortly thereafter. Almost all movement SE->NW, coming in off the ocean and continuing inland. A number of dead/exhausted individuals littering the beach (ditto for Question Mark, Am Lady).

Pat Sutton in Goshen:

Today on a black cherry in our neighbor’s yard and then across the street in a black cherry on a property not lived in [and black cherry in our yard also]. Each of these trees was covered with a swirling mass of mostly Red Admirals, though fair numbers of American Ladies & Question Marks too.

Today’s swirling, whorling, dashing hither and yon, explosion of Red Admirals was like nothing I’ve ever seen, except in a Butterfly House where they, of course, release 100s or 1000s into a confined area each day to entertain the visitors. Each tree had 100s on it.

Question mark, photo by Pat Sutton in Goshen (Cape May County) 5/4/12.

Will Kerling in Cape May Courthouse (see the log for his other reports from the day):

Bicycled 10 blocks at 1:50 pm and counted 224 RAs streaming by S to N and this pace continued basically for the next two hours / counted looking out a front window around 3 pm / saw along one fence 102 RAs going rapidly S to N!!

Sandra Keller in Palmyra Nature Cove (Burlington County) counted nearly 400 there:

Most were streaming NE over the Delaware River bank. Some were inland, but still heading northerly. This spectcular flight slowed around 4:45PM. I started counting around 4:10PM. I presume a lot of Admirals put down here!

Chip Krilowicz counted more than fifty in his yard in Haddonfield and noted the difficulty of counting:

While heading to my detached garage I noticed butterflies overhead. Upon a closer look I seen that they were all Red Admirals. I went back to my deck and started to count them. The numbers started to mount so I decided to use a sticky paper app on my phone to keep track of what I saw. After 45 min went by I chose to end it after an hour. I did not use any bins because I felt I would miss close ones flying by.

After the count I worked in the yard all afternoon and the flight continued. Getting to the end of my work, I noticed that there were more butterflies in the air and decided to do a short count. My phone has a stop watch and just kept the count numbers in my head.

For both counts I stood at the back of my house at the centerline. My back was to the house and I was facing North the entire time. I only counted butterflies that came from behind my field of view (left, right and overhead) and flew past me. The width of my count was only 100 feet, with me at the center. So any butterfly that came from the South and passed through the 100’ line was counted.

10% of the flight stopped on the azella, rhododendron and Am Holly, 20% just flew by without any hesitation, 20% flew by interacting with one or more admirals. 50% flew by made a course change to the blooms but just inspected them and flew by. I was glad the none of the butterflies decided to fly North to South over my line. I did not have to worry about subtracting any numbers.

Michael Gochfeld’s email report to NJ Birds:

While quite a few lucky people have been able to get out to experience a good bird migration morning, it is worth noting that there is a pretty heavy migration of Red Admiral butterflies streaming north (mainly) through Piscataway (Middlesex County) at this moment. I am counting
about 8 in five minutes as well as about 2 Question Marks. It would be interesting to see how wide a front is experiencing this migration as well as how early it starts and how long it persists. The migration has been light for at least two weeks, but after several cloudy days, today seems to be making up for last time.

Jesse and I counted at two spots, mostly in our garden in Port Republic (Atlantic Co) from late morning when sun came out (about 10:30 am to past 5:30 pm, where Jesse stayed all day). We estimate ~7000 red admirals came by with peaks in late afternoon — 150/5 minutes (=30/minute) at 3:30 and 180/5 minutes (= 36/minute) at 4:15. Our house runs east/west so helped us count as most butterflies veered around it (maybe 10% went over). The flight for all three species was dead-on north. We estimate 500 American ladies and 100 question marks were in the mix.

Red admirals flew most directly through the yard, stopping to nectar on our black cherry, and landing more briefly elsewhere. Question marks were only slightly more hesitant, but several stopped to oviposit on hackberries in our yard. American ladies followed the most leisurely flight, stopping to nectar frequently and also to oviposit on globe thistle (Echinops sphaerocephalus). We have never seen a flight like this one in our yard. (The two previous biggest flights we remember were July 2001 and June/July 2007.)

Question mark eggs on hackberry, Jesse Connor’s garden (Atlantic Co.) 5/4/12.

I drove over to Forsythe NWR to see what was happening there. From 12:30 to 2 pm walked to Leeds Eco Trail and also along James Akers Trail. Surprised to find that American ladies outnumbered red admirals there. Wind was strong from the south there — maybe dispersing the flight some?

Saw Linda Gangi there who told me the flight at her backyard in Manahawkin had been spectacular that morning: “Too many to count. They even landed on me.”

Please, everyone, keep sending in your reports. I’ll quote again from C.B. Williams who studied insect migration all over the world for more than forty years. This passage comes from a 1970 article about painted lady movements in North America and closes with a couplet from Homer:

The field study of insect migration is a science in which little can be planned in advance [and] observations can seldom be repeated. The observer must be ready to take advantage of the opportunity of the moment, and all students must depend on the experience of others as well as their own.

By mutual confidence and mutual aid
Great deeds are done, and great discoveries made

Keep those reports coming!

jc

Posted in Looking At Our Data, Migration, Nymphalids | 1 Comment

Send your reports about today’s flight

Posted on May 4, 2012 by connorj

Red admirals nectaring on black cherry, part of the ginormous flight today, 5-4-12, photo by Pat Sutton in Goshen (Cape May County).

This is just a rushed note, hoping to solicit responses from anyone who observed today’s huge flight of red admirals, American ladies, and question marks.

If you can log your reports on our log, that would be great. As usual with the biggest flights, numbers can only be guessed at, but please take your best guess. If possible, please include in the comments column the number of minutes you observed and also the apparent direction of the flight.

Or, if adding numbers to our log is not your thing, you can click on the Comments below and just say something here about your impressions.

And a third option — just send me an email: nacotejackATgmailDOTcom. I am trying to gather the impressions/comments from as many observers as possible.

Where did you see the flight? Which direction were they flying? Can you say something about wind direction perhaps? How about proportions of American ladies and question marks in the mix? How did you try to count? Have you ever seen anything like today’s flight?

Let’s try to document this amazing phenomenon as best we can.

More details later and some photos, if folks can pass them along.

Keep those reports coming! jc

Posted in Migration, Nymphalids | 4 Comments

April Compilation: The Action Continues

Posted on May 3, 2012 by connorj

Variegated fritillary, photo by Will Kerling, Cape May Courthouse (Cape May Co), 4-30-12.

Male pipevine swallowtail, photo by Ro Wilson, Medford Leas (Burlington Co) 4-17-12

Depending on how you count, one or the other of the species above was our 45th for the month of April (and our 46th for the year).

Will Kerling found the fritillary on the afternoon of the last day of the month, so chronologically that was the last species of the month. But soon afterwards, Jean Gutsmuth passed along a report and photos from Ro Wilson’s garden in Medford Leas where Ro had a pipevine swallowtail emerge from a chrsyalis on 4-17-12. So, that is the most recent species officially added to our log.

Both are apparently record early dates for us (joining the many earliest-ever dates we have recorded so far in this extraordinary year).

And the hot pace we have had all year continues on all fronts: more diversity, more reports, and more observers. Our total of 45 species is about half a dozen ahead of our usual total at this point (38 species in April, 2010; 39 in April 2011) and we also compiled many more observations this April than in previous years: 870 in 2010, 983 in 2011, and 1357 reports in April, 2012. (The list of contributors for April appears at the end of this report.)

Sleepy duskywing, photo by Dave Amadio, Rt 72, Woodland Township (Burlington Co), 4-30-12.

Hessel’s hairstreak, photo by Dave Amadio, Rt 72, Woodland Township (Burlington Co), 4-30-12.

Red-banded hairstreaks, photo by Will Kerling, Lizard Tail Swamp Preserve (Cape May Co), 4-24-12.

Here’s our group’s list for April, 2012. FOYs are astercized:

*pipevine swallowtail (4/17/12)
black swallowtail
* eastern tiger swallowtail (4/9/12)
spicebush swallowtail
cabbage white
falcate orange-tip
* clouded sulphur (4/8/12)
orange sulphur
American copper
brown elfin
hoary elfin
frosted elfin
Henry’s elfin
eastern pine elfin
juniper hairstreak
* Hessel’s hairstreak (4/4/12)
white-m hairstreak
gray hairstreak
red-banded hairstreak
eastern tailed-blue
blueberry azure
holly azure
American snout
*variegated fritillary (4/30/12)
pearl crescent
question mark
eastern comma
mourning cloak
American lady
* painted lady (4/17/12)
red admiral
common buckeye
* red-spotted purple (4/29/12)
* monarch (4/12/12)
silver-spotted skipper
sleepy duskywing
Juvenal’s duskywing
Horace’s duskywing
* wild indigo duskywing (4/9/12)
* common sootywing (4/14/12)
* cobweb skipper (4/15/12)
* least skipper (4/20/12)
* Peck’s skipper (4/29/12)
* sachem (4/13/12)
* zabulon (4/21/12)

In order of the number of reports (not total individuals):

Cabbage white (142 reports), orange sulphur (122 reports), Am. lady (109), e.t. blue (76), red admiral (70), Juvenal’s duskywing (63), pearl crescent (61), Henry’s elfin (49), e. pine elfin (47), red-banded hairstreak (41), mourning cloak (38), question mark (36), holly azure (36), American copper (35), c. buckeye (34), falcate orangetip (32), brown elfin (21), juniper hairstreak (21), sachem (21), e. tiger swallowtail (16), spicebush swallowtail (16), blueberry azure (14), black swallowtail (11), gray hairstreak (10), Horace’s duskywing (9), clouded sulphur (8), frosted elfin (8), monarch (8), wild indigo duskywing (8), hoary elfin (7), Hessel’s hairstreak (7), zabulon (7), sleepy duskywing (6), silver-spotted skipper (5), cobweb skipper (5), white-m hairstreak (3), Am. snout (3), eastern comma (3), painted lady (3), common sootywing (3), red-spotted purple (2), pipevine swallowtail (1), variegated fritillary (1), least skipper (1), Peck’s skipper (1).

Can we have still more drama in May? Well, we have:

–> a red admiral irruption in-progress;

–> more than a dozen late spring/early summer species we should probably expect very shortly, given the accelerated pace of the year;

–> four species (as Will K has noted) that we have recorded in every month so far — orange sulphur, common buckeye, mourning cloak and red admiral; can any one of them hang in there to become our first-ever all-12-months-of-the-year species?;

–> an ecological/behavioral puzzle to investigate: will the many single-brooded species that emerged earlier than usual (blueberry azure, pine elfin, hoary elfin, cobweb skipper, et al) shift their flight season or stretch it? Will we see the last of them earlier than usual, or will some individuals continue to emerge and fly to their usual late dates?

–> and last, let’s not forget that we have a number of second broods due to emerge as caterpillars in May:

Questionmark eggs on hackberry, Jesse Connor’s garden (Atlantic Co), 4-25-12.

Wild indigo duskywing egg on Baptisia, photo by Will Kerling, Lizard Tail Swamp Preserve (Cape May County), 4-30-12.

Our contributing observers for April 2012: Cynthia Allen, Dave Amadio, Shawn Wainwright, Eric Reuter, Chip Krilowicz, Jean Gutsmuth, Ro Wilson, Amy Gaberlain, Mike Crewe, Bridget O’Connor, Patrick O’Connor, Bill Grant, Sandra Keller, Pat & Clay Sutton, Harvey Tomlinson, Jesse & Jack Connor, Stephen Mason, Susan Mason, Tom Reed, Tiffany Kersten, Sam Galick, Tony Leukering, Bill Grant, Michael O’Brien, Jim Dowdell, Chris Herz, Chris Vogel, Chris & Paul Williams, Joanna Burger, Michael Gochfeld, Jim Springer, Teresa Knipper, Lew & Sheila Rosenberg, Mike Bisignano, Kristen Meistrell, Glen Davis, Chris Tonkinson, and Will Kerling.

Thanks to all of you. Keep those reports coming, everyone!

Any additions or corrections (or photos for use in our blog or our log) can be sent to me at nacotejackATgmailDOTcom.

jc

5/10/12 Update: See “Add Another for April” for an addition to this list.

Posted in Eggs, Cats, Chrysalids, First Emergences, Late Dates, Looking At Our Data, Migration | Comments Off on April Compilation: The Action Continues

Please Note Red Admiral Irruption

Posted on May 2, 2012 by connorj

This morning’s rain (Wednesday 5/2/12 a.m.) might put a temporary hold on yesterday’s massive flight of red admirals seen throughout South Jersey (apparently) as well as northward. If this irruption follows pattern of past years, we should see more of the flight as soon as the weather clears and for the next several days, if not for next couple of weeks.

As with all of these huge flights, numbers can only be guesstimated, but please do so and post on our log. If possible, can you include in the comments column the number of minutes you observed and the apparent direction of the flight?

In a 1970 article about painted lady movements in North America, C. B. Williams, the great investigator of insect migration, noted the challenge of studying these phenomena and closed with a quotation from Homer:

The field study of insect migration is a science in which little can be planned in advance [and] observations can seldom be repeated. The observer must be ready to take advantage of the opportunity of the moment, and all students must depend on the experience of others as well as their own.

By mutual confidence and mutual aid
Great deeds are done, and great discoveries made

Let’s try to document this current flight as best we can.

I’ll post details as they are reported on our log and will add photos too, if folks pass them along: nacotejackATgmailDOTcom.

The Weather Channel says rain will be ending about mid-afternoon, so could we see a resumption of the flight later today?

Keep those reports coming, everyone!

jc

Posted in Migration, Nymphalids | Comments Off on Please Note Red Admiral Irruption

Can you name either of these butterflies?

Posted on April 24, 2012 by connorj

An anglewing, sp. photo’d by Harvey Tomlinson in the Great Swamp (Morris Co) on 4-21-12

Harvey Tomlinson has sent along the photo above as an unsolved puzzle: Is it a comma or a question mark? He points out that the bright punctuation crescent on the HW underside looks like it belongs on a comma, but the series of three spots leading to the “dash” across the FW look like it belongs on a question mark. The FW series is visible on both the left wing and the right wing (looking through the wing).

So, what is the species?

The butterfly seems to be ovipositing, so bonus points for anyone who can identify those newly-emerging leaves.

And how about the extremely well-worn flyer below? Have an opinion about what that seems to be? Will Kerling has named the species, but let’s keep it a secret until people have a chance to study the photo themselves and post their thoughts.

If you can ID either of these butterflies (or the plant), post a note in the Comment space below to tell us your logic.

What’s the winner’s prize, you ask?

How about more photo puzzles just like these?

jc

A hard-to-ID lycaenid, photo’d by Will Kerling in Cape May Courthouse, 4-22-12

Posted in ID Challenges & Tips, Lycaenids, Nymphalids | 1 Comment

A Thousand Entries, Two New Skippers, & Admiral Immigration

Posted on April 22, 2012 by connorj

Least skipper, photo’d by Chip Krilowicz, Supawna Meadows, Salem Co, 4-20-12

We have reached 1100 entries for April with more than a week left to go. (Last year we totaled 880 for the whole month.)

And our log’s year list, augmented by the two early skippers pictured here, has reached forty-two.

See our log for the details.

We are also witnessing a significant (and possibly growing?) northbound invasion of red admirals, apparently part of a widespread movement. Cynthia Allen — thank you, C.A. — has passed along an article describing the flood of admirals into Canada: A tidal wave of butterflies into eastern Canada

Maybe all we need now to make this a truly magnificent month for butterflyers is some rain, to end the long local drought, and to help insure that emerging caterpillars (of all species) will find some fresh green leaves when they break from their eggs.

Keep exploring and reporting, everyone!

If anyone has a sharp, current photo of two or three (or more) red admirals together that you would be willing to contribute to our blog, please pass along.

I am always looking for new photos of butterflies to post, so pass along others of interest as well: nacotejackATgmailDOTcom.

Thanks to Chip and Dave for the photos here — and to all of you who have already been contributing your shots. Keep ’em coming!

jc

Male zabulon skipper, photo’d by Dave Amadio in his backyard in West Deptford, Gloucester, 4-21-12

Posted in First Emergences, Looking At Our Data, Migration, Nymphalids, Skippers | Comments Off on A Thousand Entries, Two New Skippers, & Admiral Immigration

Ides of April IDs

Posted on April 18, 2012 by connorj

Cobweb skipper, found and photo’d by Pennsylvania butterflyer Bill Grant in Dividing Creek, 4-15-12

The cobweb skipper above gives our group’s log thirty-eight species of butterflies for the first half of April and thirty-nine species for the year. (Summer azure, Celastrina neglecta, seen in its spring form in March, has not yet been reported this month.)

The pace of butterfly emergences remains well ahead of the pattern we have seen over the past four years. Ordinarily by this point we have recorded about two dozen species (we had twenty-five by April 15 last year).

Here’s our group’s list for the first fifteen days of April, 2012. FOYs are astercized:

black swallowtail
* eastern tiger swallowtail 4/9/12
spicebush swallowtail
cabbage white
falcate orange-tip
* clouded sulphur 4/8/12
orange sulphur
American copper
brown elfin
hoary elfin
frosted elfin
Henry’s elfin
eastern pine elfin
juniper hairstreak
* Hessel’s hairstreak 4/4/12
white-m hairstreak
gray hairstreak
red-banded hairstreak
eastern tailed-blue
blueberry azure
holly azure
American snout
pearl crescent
question mark
eastern comma
mourning cloak
American lady
red admiral
common buckeye
* monarch 4/12/12
silver-spotted skipper
sleepy duskywing
Juvenal’s duskywing
Horace’s duskywing
* wild indigo duskywing 4/9/12
* common sootywing 4/14/12
* cobweb skipper 4/15/12

Red-banded hairstreak, photo’d by Will Kerling, 4-12-12.

Common buckeye, smaller than a quarter, photo by Will Kerling, 4-15-12, one of many “runts” in this species that he and other contributors have observed.

Butterflies have been just one element in the “early spring” pattern evident in a wide spectrum of organisms this year, including many (not all) migrant birds, many (not all) flowering plants, and many other insect groups — moths, bees, and even craneflies:

Phantom cranefly, Bittacomorpha clavipes, generally a summer species in South Jersey, photo’d by Pat Sutton in her garden in Goshen, 4-7-12, at least a couple of weeks early.

It will be interesting to see how long the flight periods of our early-emerging butterflies will last, especially the single-brooded species. Will they shift or stretch? In other words, will blueberry azures, pine elfins, sleepy duskywings, cobweb skippers, and the like disappear from sight earlier than usual? Or, will they continue to fly to the dates when we generally last see them?

An individual adult butterfly has a limited flight period, of course — because of wing wear, predation, accidents, and other inevitable problems — so it’s very unlikely that a blueberry azure emerging on February 23 (~three weeks early) will survive long into March or that a cobweb skipper emerging in mid-April will fly many days into May. But what pattern will we see for the species? Will adults continue to emerge to the end of the species’ usual flight period? Or will we see something more like a shift of the population, when all/most members fly early?

“Late dates” are not as easy to note and celebrate as FOYs, but this is a year when recording them carefully could tell us something about the ecology of our local butterflies, it would seem.

Who will spot the last blueberry azure or the last pine elfin? There is a worthy challenge for sharp-eyed butterflyers!

Keep at it, everyone!

jc

The last of a pine elfin being consumed by a big sand tiger beetle, Cicindela formosa, at Whiting WMA (Ocean County), 4-14-12, photo by Chris Williams.

Posted in First Emergences, Looking At Our Data | Comments Off on Ides of April IDs