Sighting for June 6, 2012
Craig Marks, Jeff Trahan
Sisily Island Hills WMA
Catahoula Parish, LA
- Pipevine Swallowtail 6
- Giant Swallowtail 4
- Eastern Tiger Swallowtail 3
- Spicebush Swallowtail abundant
- Southern Dogface 1
- Cloudless Sulphur 3
- Little Yellow 1
- Gray Hairstreak 1
- Red-banded Hairstreak abundant
- Eastern Tailed-Blue 1
- Pearl Crescent 8
- American Lady 3
- Common Buckeye 2
- Red-spotted Purple 6
- Hackberry Emperor 3
- Southern Pearly-eye 6
- Gemmed Satyr 1
- Little Wood-Satyr 3
- Silver-spotted Skipper common
- Horace's Duskywing 4
- Funereal Duskywing 1
- Clouded Skipper 5
- Fiery Skipper 1
- Southern Broken-Dash abundant
- Northern Broken-Dash 5
- Sachem 1
- Yehl Skipper abundant
- Dun Skipper 7
- Lace-winged Roadside-Skipper abundant
With a slight cool front having moved through the day before, temperatures were warm but not oppressive. We entered the WMA via its southwestern entrance, about 5 miles east of Harrisonburg. There was a large amount of purple bee balm blooming along the side of the roads within the unit, and those floweres brought out the butterflies in great numbers. We did not attempt to keep actual numbers, but we easily saw several hundred from 10:00 until about 2:45. We ended up seeing 29 species.