South Jersey Butterfly B/Log

Here come the Frittish!

Posted on July 5, 2011 by connorj

Great spangled fritillary at Reed's Beach, Cape May Co., photo by Tom Reed, 7/5/11. (Click to enlarge.)

We picked up two different fritillary species in Salem County last week, and now thanks to Tom Reed’s find in his family’s yard on the Delaware Bayshore this morning, we can add a second county for touchdowns of the great spangled in South Jersey in 2011.

Where else can we spot this species this year?

Speyeria cybele seems a bit of a mystery here. We had no reports at all in 2008, the first year of our log; only four records in 2009 (one each from Salem, Cape May, Camden, and Ocean); and only six records last year (from Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Salem, and Atlantic).

So, although we now have had at least one record from each county in our area except Burlington, all have been scattered in both space and time — with records from as early as June 11 (2010) to as late as September 19 (2009).

Could the individuals we find here possibly be wandering down from North Jersey? Tom wondered about that as he watched his butterfly fly in from the north and eventually wander off to the south, and his photos show a worn individual — and so does Dave’s photo (below) of one of the Salem individuals from the weekend. All of this is a long way from hard evidence, of course, but does anyone know of a breeding colony in our southern eight counties?

Gochfeld and Burger note it is “remarkably rare in southern New Jersey,” citing the views of both Jim Dowdell and Dale Schweitzer.

Since 1991 it has been recorded only 6 times (a total of 8 individuals) on the Cumberland NABA Count and only once on the Belleplain Count (1 individual, with another during count week).

It’s such a large, eye-catching, and leisurely-nectaring butterfly you might guess that we would find it more often and could track it down to some colonies, if it is breeding here.

Is it?

Anyone out there with some words of wisdom on that question?

Great spangled fritillary at Supawna Meadows, Salem Co., photo by Dave Amadio, 7/2/11.

Posted in Looking At Our Data, Nymphalids | Comments Off

June 2011 Compilation: so far, so good

Posted on July 5, 2011 by connorj

Coral hairstreaks in tandem along the Atlantic Ave powerline in Egg Harbor Township (Atlantic Co) on June 23.

June 30 is not quite halfway through the butterflyer’s year, so it’s too early for any final conclusions for 2011. Still, it’s tempting to feel bullish.

Last year, 2010, seemed very-good-to-excellent to most South Jersey butterflyers (and North Jersey observers as well), and at the moment, our results of 2011 seem even a little ahead of last year’s run.

An unsolved question: how should we factor observer effort and skills? Are we recording more butterflies simply because we have more observers out in the field for more hours (and we are growing steadily more knowledgeable each year)? Or, are there simply more butterflies flying this year than last?

Even without counting the two June NABA Counts at Belleplain and Cumberland (that data should be added shortly), June 2011 ran slightly ahead of June 2010. In short-hand form:

June 2010: 56 species in 1276 reports of 9313 individuals butterflies
June 2011: 59 species in 1900 reports of 12075 individual butterflies.

Species seen in adult form in June, 2011, with FOYs in italics:

4 swallowtails: pipevine, black, tiger, and spicebush.

3 pierids: cabbage white, clouded sulfur, and orange sulfur.

14 lycaenids: American copper, bog copper, coral hairstreak, Edward’s hairstreak, banded hairstreak, striped hairstreak, frosted elfin, eastern pine elfin, juniper/Hessel’s hairstreak (sp), white-m hairstreak, gray hairstreak, red-banded hairstreak, eastern tailed-blue, and summer azure.

19 nymphalids: American snout, variegated fritillary, great spangled fritillary, pearl crescent, question mark, eastern comma, mourning cloak, American lady, red admiral, common buckeye, red-spotted purple, viceroy, hackberry emperor, tawny emperor, Appalachian brown, Georgia satyr, little wood-satyr, common wood nymph, and monarch.

29 hesperids: silver-spotted skipper, southern cloudywing, northern cloudywing, Hayhurst’s scallopwing, Juvenal’s duskywing, Horace’s duskywing, wild indigo duskwing, common checkered skipper, common sootywing, least skipper, swarthy skipper, European skipper, fiery skipper, dotted 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, two-spotted skipper, dun skipper, and saltmarsh skipper.

The last FOY for June was great spangled fritillary recorded on June 29 by Sandra Keller at National Lands Trust Property in Salem. That gave us 82 species for the year (and on July 2 we added meadow fritillary for #83; see post below).

In June last year we found only two species we did not record in June this year: oak hairstreak and painted lady. (It has not been a good year for V. cardui so far, with only two reports for 2011, one in late April and the other in early May.)

We found five species this June not recorded in June 2010: frosted elfin, eastern pine elfin, Juvenal’s duskywing, mulberry wing, and fiery skipper.

Mulberry wings were found on their best-known colony on the Tuckahoe River on the border of Atlantic and Cape May Counties. Photo by Will Kerling, 6/19/11

The five most-reported species for June 2011: cabbage white (210 June reports), spicebush swallowtail (137 reports), orange sulphur (117 reports), eastern-tailed blue (117 reports), and common buckeye (111 reports). Species recorded only once during the month: frosted elfin, eastern pine elfin, great spangled fritillary, Georgia (NJ) satyr, Hayhurst’s scallopwing, Juvenal’s duskywing, European skipper, and fiery skipper.

Hairstreak numbers, which have been down since 2009 for most species, especially Satyrium, seem OK/mediocre at the moment, slightly up from last year’s humdrum totals. Juniper hairstreak has been notable in its absence, and we had just one report of a green hairstreak in June, by Ray Sampson who had a brief look of a juniper/Hessel’s at Lakehurst on June 18.

Coral hairstreak numbers seem up from last couple of years, and Edward’s hairstreaks were found reliably at the Hesstown powerline hot spot in Cumberland County.

Edward’s hairstreak, Hesstown powerline, photo by Stephen Mason, 6/26/11

Several observers have been adding caterpillar records on the log. Super! Keep at it, please. We should be charting them for an even better understanding of butterfly ecology in South Jersey, and, of course, they are beautiful too:

Silver-spotted skipper caterpillar photo by Will Kerling, 6/24/11.

So, all in all, it seems like a good year so far, the weather has been cooperating, and July’s butterfly and butterflyer activity has continued in the same spirit as June’s ended. But let’s not take anything for granted, because just when you least expect it…..

A crab spider dispatches a broad-wing on the Cumberland NABA 6/29/11.

Keep alert, everyone! And keep exploring and logging in!

Here’s a pdf of the June spreadsheet. Click on the + to enlarge. You can also find this pdf on the “In-Progress Compilation” page. If you would like it in Excel form, just email me.

SJBFs for June 2011

Posted in Looking At Our Data | 2 Comments

Salem County: Hopping w/Leps

Posted on July 3, 2011 by connorj

Bronze copper at Mannington Marsh, photo by Dave Amadio, 7/2/11. (Click to enlarge.)

July has started just as June ended — with lots of of action recorded in our log from a wide variety of spots across South Jersey. The hottest spots of all, however, may be in Salem County, especially Mannington Marsh.

Among many other finds yesterday, Jean Gutsmuth and Dave Amadio both found and recorded bronze coppers there, and Dave also added meadow fritillary, a butterfly generally associated with grasslands of northwestern NJ and considered “very rare or absent” on the Coastal Plain (Gochfeld and Burger).

This seems to be our first photographic evidence of the species in South Jersey in our four years of logging.

Meadow fritillary at Mannington Marsh, photo by Dave Amadio, 7/2/11. (Click to enlarge.)

We’ve had only a handful of bronze copper reports over the last four years, so both of these are excellent and exciting finds!

And let’s not forget about the great spangled fritillaries also being seen in Salem!

Keep at it, everyone!

PS: Anyone have a thought on what brood the copper represents? Several observers recorded the species at Mannington on May 28, adults from a first brood obviously (see “Bronze Copper Returns to Sunset Drive” post below). And we have had reports of them from Mannington in August in past years (thanks to Dave also), presumably a “second brood.” So, what do we call these fresh-looking July individuals? Late emergences of a first brood? Early members of a second brood?

Posted in Lycaenids, Nymphalids | Comments Off

And now we have 81…

Posted on June 26, 2011 by connorj

Georgia satyr at Lakehurst, photo by Dave Amadio, 6/25/11. (Click to enlarge.)

Dave Amadio journeyed back to Lakehurst yesterday for another try for Georgia satyr. and he managed to find four individuals of the beautiful, bog and savanna specialist.

Thank you, Dave!

That’s our 81st species for the year (see “Count at 80” post below, if you’d like to make your guess at what you think will be our final total for the year.)

Georgia satyr is at its northernmost limit at Lakehurst, and its New Jersey population is completely disjunct — separated by two hundred or more miles from the nearest colonies in southeast Virginia.

The NJ form, Neonympha areolata septentrionalis, shows some subtle differences from the southern form (but see footnote #2 below):

Shapiro notes that NJ individuals average larger than those from southern populations and have rounder wings.

Cech & Tudor report that NJ individuals generally show more prominent eyespots on the FW (just visible in Dave’s photo if you click once or twice to enlarge) and have more rounded eyespots in the HW “with no light flecks in the center.”

Gochfeld and Burger add that the genitalia of the southern form and NJ form differ (citing a study by Dale Schweitzer) and conclude that our population “is probably a separate species, the Lakehurst Satyr, Neonympha septentrionalis.”

If the population were recognized as a separate species, the Lakehurst satyr would become New Jersey’s only endemic butterfly.

*********

Footnote 1: Stockton’s library data base enabled a track back to the original description of the Lakehurst form.

The description of the population first appears in a 1924 article by William T. Davis, “A northern form of the butterfly Neonympha areolatus” in the Journal of the New York Entomological Society.

After describing Georgia satyr plates in several 19th century books, Davis writes, “Many years ago [I] observed that numerous specimens… that [I] collected at Lakehurst, New Jersey, had the eye-like spots on the underside of the hind wings rounder than in specimens coming from Florida and the south in general….According to [my] observation, northern specimens [also] have the outer margin of the fore wing somewhat more rounded or curved than in those from the south.”

He concluded, “The northern specimens appear therefore separable as a variety or race from the southern ones, and the name septentrionalis is here proposed for it.”

Footnote 2: In 1999 the late lepidopterist Ron Gatrelle proposed a very different interpretation of Georgia satyr populations. You can read his study “Hubner’s Helicta: the Forgotten Neonympha” here:

R. Gatrelle, Neonympha helicta, July 1999

Or here: The International Lepidopterist Survey: The Taxonomic Report (click to Volume 1, Number 8, July 1999)

In brief, Gatrelle argues that the form Davis called “septentrionalis” is actually the original, first-described form of Georgia satyr, named by the German entomologist Jacob Hubner based on a painting by John Henry Abbot in 1806. Hubner’s name for the species was Oreas fimbriata helicta. Gatrelle observed that this form (with rounder spots on the HW, etc) flies not only in New Jersey but also in South Carolina and elsewhere in the southeast. In Gatrelle’s view (if I understand it correctly): “septentrionalis” = “helicta.”

Gatrelle believed the other population — the source of Davis’s southern specimens — is less clearly recognized as a separate species. He describes some subtle differences between N. septentrionalis/helicta and N. aerolatus (including flight behavior and habitat differences as well as field marks). He proposes two species, Neonympha helicta (which would include our NJ population and similar populations in the south) and Neonympha aerolatus and argues that John Abbot recognized these differences in his original field work in South Carolina in the first decade of the 19th century!

Gatrelle writes, “First, the Abbot depiction of the species named helicta by Hübner is a more accurate depiction of septentrionalis than areolatus (especially in the male). Second, workers should have placed more confidence in Abbot’s skills as a naturalist. Abbot was a keen observer who knew what he was doing. While we today have had difficulty, in some cases, figuring out what Abbot had [because his specimens have been lost and we have only his paintings], he surely knew that his helicta and areolatus were two species.”

Whew! I don’t know if anyone is reading all the way through this, but if you want to dive even deeper into this complexity, you can go to two current websites that endorse Gatrelle’s analysis and provide photos and fieldmarks to distinguish the Helicta satyr from the Georgia Satyr where they both fly in the Carolinas:

Jeff Pippen’s site on duke.edu

Will Cook’s North American Butterflies/North Carolina Butterflies

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Count at 80 — and a prediction challenge

Posted on June 24, 2011 by connorj

Rare skipper on buttonbush, Johnson Pond, near Rt 47, photo by Will Kerling, 6/22/11

We have had a surge of FOYs in the last couple of weeks — two-spotted skipper, mulberry wing, dotted skipper, several Satyrium hairstreaks, and others. (See our log for details). Chip Krilowicz’s dying common wood nymph on 6/20/11 and Will Kerling’s find of our first rare skipper on 6/22/11 pushed our total for the year to 80 species.

It isn’t even July yet, and already you can look ahead over the remaining possibilities and try guessing how many more species we can find this year. (See the NABA Codes & Notes tab on our log for the full list from 2009 and 2010 and our current total for 2011.)

South Jersey hosts a limited number of butterfly species each year (less than 100, it seems), and nearly every one remaining on our not-yet-found possibilities list for 2011 seems “iffy.”

The one remaining certainty (or near certainty) is cloudless sulphur.

Dion skipper is probably the next most likely.

All others on our list from the previous two years will take careful observation and a touch of luck, it seems. The three most pressing species at the moment, as we move from June into July, are probably oak hairstreak, Georgia satyr, and black dash. Each of those should be flying now and is rare enough to be missed easily.

Black dash seems an especially a tough find on the Coastal Plain. In our four years of logging we have had only one record.

Georgia satyr probably outnumbers oak hairstreak and black dash and several other species on the not-yet-seen list, but it’s a Pine Barrens creature most find-able in out-of-the-way wet savannas of the NJPB. Can someone spot one on a Lakehurst trip, where our observers have found the species in previous years?

Oak hairstreak seems a mystery species — found the last couple of years but in very low numbers and unpredictably. No colony is known.

Leonard’s skipper flies in late summer and is a local breeder we missed completely last year. There seems only one known colony in South Jersey, along the Manumuskin River. Let’s find some Leonard’s this year!

Many of the other remaining not-yet-found species are southern strays: Ocola skipper, little yellow, sleepy orange…who knows which of those will wander up this way this year?

We may find something totally unexpected, of course, not on our list at all. That will be a thrill for the finder and the rest of us vicariously as well.

Still, can we match last year’s 93 species this year? Although 2011 has been a very good year so far, we will do well to reach that total again, imho. Bettering that total will require lots of observers persisting in their explorations, a surge of southern strays, two or three totally unexpected species, and a good deal of luck!

You are invited to make your own guess at our final total by clicking on the comment section below. What’s your guess: 90? 93? 95? Higher??

If you want to really show off your prognostication abilities, you can even list those species you believe are still to come in 2011.

Common wood nymph being eaten by praying mantis, Bevan WMA, photo by Chip Krilowicz, 6/20/11

Posted in First Emergences, Looking At Our Data | 5 Comments

Pipevine Cats Mystery

Posted on June 23, 2011 by connorj

Male pipevine swallowtail

Why so many pipevine swallowtail caterpillars this year?

Pipevine swallowtails have long seemed a hard-to-find butterfly in southern New Jersey. One obvious reason: their host plants, the Aristolochia, are rare to non-existent in the wild here. (Our only native pipevine, A. serpentaria, Virginia snakeroot, may be even harder to find in southern New Jersey than the butterfly.) So, pipevine swallowtails apparently depend on garden-grown Aristolochia (and perhaps occasional escaped plants) to lay their eggs and to feed their caterpillars.

Female ovipositing in Port Republic

Can a butterfly succeed in a region where it must depend on gardeners to grow its host?

The jury is out on that question, it seems.

Pipevine swallowtail eggs

One garden we know of in Villas (Cape May County) sees pipevine adults most years and has had caterpillars regularly over the years. Other South Jersey gardens (that we know of) seem to have them much less often.

That’s what makes 2011 seem like an unusual year. At least six gardens within our South Jersey BF Log network are hosting pipevine swallowtail cats at the moment: two in Villas, one in Goshen (Cape May County), one in Hainesport (Burlington), and two in Port Republic (Atlantic). Undoubtedly, there are dozens of other gardens (100s?) outside our little network that have caterpillars this year.

Q: Why the boom?
A: Please let us hear any theory you have!

Pipevine swallowtail caterpillars, first instar, soon after hatching in Hainesport garden, photo by Frank Victor

If you grow pipevines in your yard, go out for a look. You may be surprised to see some chewed leaves and even more surprised to turn over those leaves and find caterpillars munching happily beneath. (At least three of the gardeners above didn’t know they had caterpillars in their own gardens until their friends convinced them to go look.)

Both caterpillars and adults depend on the plants’ toxins for protection from predators and also (according to some studies) wasp parasitoids.

Birds seem to avoid pipevine swallowtails, and as most of us know, at least four New Jersey butterflies apparently gain some protection from birds by sharing similar color patterns with pipevine swallowtails: spicebush swallowtail, black swallowtail, eastern tiger swallowtail (the dark female form), and red-spotted purple.

Third instar (?) caterpillars, June 15, 2011, still feeding in clusters, Port Republic garden

Google “pipevine swallowtail” or “Battus philenor“, and you will find much info about the complexity of mimicry.

An interesting twist you might not know but can find in the literature is that Battus swallowtails in the tropics (where the group originated) also might gain protection by mimicry. The velvety-look of fourth and fifth-instar caterpillars may have evolved in mimicry of the velvet worm of the tropics — a dangerous invertebrate predator. Would the creature below look like a velvet worm to a wasp or other potential parasitoid?

Larger cat, fourth instar (?) feeding alone as its siblings have dispersed to many different leaves, Port Republic garden, 6/22/11

If you do have the plant and caterpillars in your garden, the next challenge will be spotting a chrysalis. If you find one, please add the data to our SJ BF log or leave a comment here. That will be an exciting find!

Keep exploring, everyone!

A chrysalis, brown form, July 2005, Port Republic garden (from caterpillar raised in captivity)

A green form chrysalis, July 2005, Port Republic garden (from caterpillar raised in captivity)

Posted in Eggs, Cats, Chrysalids, Swallowtails | 6 Comments

Early Fiery Caps FOY Run

Posted on June 14, 2011 by connorj

Fiery skipper on common milkweed at Wheelabrator Refuge, Gloucester, 6/12/11, photo by Dave Amadio.

We have had several first-of-the-season observations in the last few days: coral hairstreak, white-m hairstreak, northern broken dash, broad-winged skipper, and — most surprisingly — fiery skipper.

Fiery skippers do not overwinter in NJ (apparently) and usually do not make their first appearances here before mid- to late summer. Our early dates the last two years were 8-23-09 and 7-24-10. (You can see all early dates for the last two years under the “Species: Early & Late Dates” Page on our blog.)

We have now recorded 73 species for the year, ahead of last year’s good pace, it seems. See our live log for the latest reports.

Keep at it, everyone!

Posted in First Emergences, Skippers | Comments Off

Cloudywings in Competition?

Posted on June 9, 2011 by connorj

Northern cloudywing above; southern cloudywing below.

South Jersey has a number of look-alike/act-alike pairs of butterfly species: orange and common sulfurs, holly and blueberry azures, American and painted ladies, hackberry and tawny emperors, Juvenal’s and Horace’s duskywings, tawny-edged and crossline skippers, and others. Each member of each pair shares a close, common ancestor with its partner; many pairs occur in the same habitats and at the same times of year; and in a few cases the two members of the pair apparently even share the very same host plant.

Our two cloudywings seem to share especially similar ecologies, and for the last several days Will Kerling has been observing northern cloudywings and southern cloudywings ovipositing on the same plant species at Lizard Tail Swamp Preserve.

The plant involved is a Lespedeza (bush-clover) and both butterflies have been laying eggs on it regularly.

Here’s Will’s close-up of one egg — from a southern cloudywing in this case:

And here’s his photo of the plant involved (apparently Lespedeza repens)

We don’t ordinarily think of butterflies competing with each other, but by the rules of evolution and ecology our two cloudywings (and all the species pairs above) must be in competition with one another. According to Darwin’s theory, the more closely-related two species are, the more intense the competition between them.

The American naturalist Joseph Grinnell synthesized that idea with others of Darwin’s ideas and pointed out in 1904, “Every animal tends to increase at a geometric ratio and is checked only by limit of food supply. It is only by adaptations to different sorts of food, or modes of food getting, that more than one species can occupy the same locality. Two species of approximately the same food habits are not likely to remain…evenly balanced in numbers in the same region. One will crowd out the other.”

Today this idea is known as The Principle of Competitive Exclusion or “The Rule of 4 Cs” (“Complete Competitors Cannot Co-Exist”). Ecologists generally agree that no two species can permanently overlap in any one area unless they find some way to “partition the resources.” The niches of any two species must differ in at least one significant way, or the better-adapted species of the two will eventually expand its numbers (expanding geometrically) through the shared range until it monopolizes all the resources for itself. The second species must find a way to avoid complete competition or it will be extirpated.

The ebb and flow of the Rule of 4 Cs seems to occur on too long a time scale for us to notice changes in a single season, or a single decade, and maybe not even in a single human lifetime. So, it seems to us that the two cloudywings and the others above share their habitats freely with one another. But competitive exclusion must be happening in some way, and thinking about the puzzles involved can add an interesting extra to our butterflying. Which of the two species of each of those pairs above seems to be doing better here? Is one generally more numerous than the other in certain habitats? Do the proportions of the two species change from year to year in response to weather patterns? Is there a host plant difference so subtle that no observer has ever noticed it? What about their seasonal timing? Does one always first fly a week or two earlier — or continue its egg-laying a week or two later?

Anyone with thoughts on this pair or the other close relatives above is invited to leave a comment.

Keep exploring and reporting!
jc

Posted in Eggs, Cats, Chrysalids, Host Plants, Skippers | Comments Off

May 31 Compilation

Posted on June 3, 2011 by connorj

The least skipper was one of seventeen skipper species added to our log in May.

Our current butterfly year continues to look like a good one — and might even be shaping up as better than last year’s excellent butterfly season.

As of the last day in May this year more than forty observers have contributed approximately 2500 reports of more than 10,000 individual butterflies, and we have found 62 species so far.

Species seen in adult form as of 5-31-11:

4 swallowtails: pipevine, black, tiger, and spicebush.

4 pierids: cabbage white, falcate orange-tip, clouded sulfur, and orange sulfur.

16 lycaenids: American copper, bronze copper, brown elfin, hoary elfin, frosted elfin, Henry’s elfin, eastern pine elfin, juniper hairstreak, Hessel’s hairstreak, gray hairstreak, red-banded hairstreak, eastern tailed-blue, blueberry azure, holly azure, Edward’s azure, and summer azure.

15 nymphalids: variegated fritillary, pearl crescent, question mark, eastern comma, mourning cloak, American lady, painted lady, red admiral, common buckeye, red-spotted purple, viceroy, hackberry emperor, little wood-satyr, and monarch.

23 hesperids: silver-spotted skipper, southern cloudywing, northern cloudywing, Hayhurst’s scallopwing, sleepy duskywing, Juvenal’s duskywing, Horace’s duskywing, wild indigo duskwing, common checkered skipper, common sootywing, least skipper, swarthy skipper, cobweb skipper, Peck’s skipper, tawny-edged skipper, crossline skipper, little glassywing, sachem, zabulon skipper, Aaron’s skipper, dun skipper, dusted skipper, and saltmarsh skipper.

May was a particularly good month, when we collected more than 1500 observations of more 5800 individual butterflies and found (or refound) 61 of the 62 species seen so far this year. Only Edward’s azure, a tough ID at all times, was not reported in May; and we added 23 FOY species, including two on the very last day of the month (hackberry emperor and salt-marsh skipper).

For a brief overview, go to our live log and click on the “NABA Codes & Notes” tab, which lists all species seen this year (and in 2009 and 2010) with their early and late dates.

For a more detailed, sorted spreadsheet of all May 2011 reports, go here (and click to enlarge). FOYs for May are highlighted in blue:

Reports for May 2011

For a sorted spreadsheet of all reports for 2011 so far, go here (and click to enlarge):

2011 SJBF Log to May 31

Contributing observers and participants this year so far (as of 5/31/11) include: Cynthia Allen, Dave Amadio, Denise Bittle, Joanna Burger, Marcus Christodoro, Jesse & Jack Connor, Mike Crewe, Glen Davis, Jim Dowdell, Rhea Doherty, Sam Galick, Jon Gelhaus, Michael Gochfeld, Jean Gutsmith, Chris Herz, Bert Hixon, Brian Johnson, Doug Johnson, Sandra Keller, Will Kerling, Chris Kisiel, Chip Krilowicz, Kathleen Lapergola, John Lawrence, Tony Leukering, Angela Marzi, Stephen Mason, Patti Murray, Fred Pfeifer, Tom Reed, Eric Reuter, Bret Roberts, Patty Rourke, Dale Schweitzer, Barb Sendelbach, Jim Springer, Pat & Clay Sutton, Harvey Tomlinson, Chris Tonkinson, Guy Tudor, Jessica & Shawn Wainright, and Chris & Paula Williams. That’s at least forty-six of us — and if someone’s name is missing, let me know.

Keep exploring and keep those reports coming, everyone!

Posted in Looking At Our Data | Comments Off

New Butterfly for Our State!

Posted on June 1, 2011 by connorj

Photo by Sam Galick of silvery blue at Minisink Valley Preserve (Sussex Co). Click to enlarge.

On Saturday May 28, Sam Galick and Tom Reed made the butterfly find of the year, if not the decade. They identified and photographed a silvery blue, Glaucopsyche lygdamus, at The Nature Conservancy’s Minisink Valley Preserve in Sussex County.

This seems a new species for the state. Michael Gochfeld and Joanna Burger note in their Butterflies of New Jersey (1997) that there were no definite or even hypothetical records of the species. Art Shapiro in his Butterflies of the Delaware Valley (1966) had only a handful of records and those from Pennsylvania only.

Cech & Tudor in their Butterflies of the East Coast note that the northern race, couperi, has been expanding southward “along highway corridors, feeding on introduced cow vetch,” but as far as known at the moment, no one has ever documented the species for the state.

NABA’s Jim Springer notes, “Very exciting… I am unaware of any reports since 1997 when Butterflies of New Jersey was published.”

David Wright has confirmed the identification:

“It is subspecies couperi, which has been spreading southward out of Canada in the last two decades.

“[I have corresponded] this morning with Bob Dirig at Ithaca. Bob documented the irruption of this population with a paper in [The Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society]

“It is following the pattern that the ringlet started nearly 20 years ago moving south out of the Catskills. Very nice find. Congrats to Sam. I would consider it the first bona-fide NJ record.”

Here’s a link to a 1991 study by Robert Dirig in JLS that I believe is the one referenced by David:
The Status of the Silvery Blue…in New York by Robert Dirig and John F. Cryan

This is an out-of-South-Jersey-area report, but it’s so cool (and found by two South Jersey birder/butterflyers) that we have to note it here. If/when more details come in, I’ll update this blog post.

June 2 Update

Jim Springer reports about an effort he and others made to re-locate the silvery blue yesterday:

“A number of butterfliers from northern/central NJ went to Minisink Preserve today, June 1, to look for Silvery Blue following up the report of a single individual from last Saturday. While we had 21 species of butterflies at the Preserve, unfortunately we didn’t find a silvery blue. We investigated both the original location in the field on the west side of Clove Road as well as an extensive area on the east side of Clove Road that is a former sand/gravel pit that is in the process of being revegetated with willows, clover, grasses, etc. We’ll put the word out for people to keep their eyes open for this butterfly on their field trips in the northern part of the state. Hopefully, the butterfly seen last Saturday is the first vanguard of what will become a regular breeder within the state. It would be great to have a new addition to our fauna instead of always seeming to be losing species.”

Posted in Lycaenids, Out-of-Area Reports | Comments Off