October 2019 Sightings

9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Weather: 82°-89°, sun all day 90%, winds 10-18 mph. Nectar: Pickerelweed, liatris, carphephorus, caesarweed. LCooper, SFarnsworth, BZaremba.

Possibly the best year in town for Ocola Skipper (1-3 a day during the past week) and Fiery Skipper (5-15 a day). One of the best autumns for Monarch, Painted Lady and Common Buckeye around here. Many Monarchs migrating the last several days, some stopping in gardens for fuel.

Snout was a surprise today.

First ever for me seeing a Cloudless Sulphur here or in Lanco.

Also one unidentified anglewing

43rd & 44th butterfly species for our yard this year!

10:30 to 12:30PM. Cloudy to light rain. 75 degrees.
Fiery Skipper and Milbert’s Tortoiseshell were personal first records for Iosco County.

I’ve seen several in flight here this summer. This is the first that one has cooperated for photos

10:30-12:30. Mostly cloudy at start to mostly sunny and 75 degrees at stop.

Clear, mild day, riparian habitat. Saw 6 additional whites not identified, probably a mix of checkered and cabbage.
One of the buckeyes was the dark form. This is the first time I’ve seen one of these.

Windy, humid and got hot. Out for 3.5 hours

Even though it was in low nineties far less butterflies are seen daily, even with adequate nectar sources available.

Nectar sources drying up fast here! ETB seen in wet area.

The Monarchs have been all over my asters and Mexican sunflower.

Sunny record warmth for this date here ca. 80 degrees at 11am or so…..A bit of a surprise, as this is the latest Swarthy Skipper either of us has ever seen up here, so late that SW considered there could be a third brood in this warm year. (SW photo).

With Sherry Wilson. 92F, light winds, full sun. Hiked 5 miles.

Season is winding down but there are still some butterflies to be seen. California Tortoiseshells migrating, California Sisters are very worn, Common Ringlets making love (trying anyway). Skippers were predominately Umber Skippers, nectaring on yellow star thistle, very few Sylvan Skippers.

extremely hot, high 90’s

Excited to find a Clouded Skipper in my center back garden. Although rare for the area - none had been seen since 2014. This year since mid-September there have been a few individual’s seen around Cape May County, NJ. #45 species for my yard for 2019 and #55 species for past 6 years. Still have many buckeye caterpillar on snapdragons. Plus Black Swallowtail and Monarch cats on their host plants. I also have chrysalis from Spicebush Swallowtail, BS, CB, and Red-spotted Purple. Sunny, low 70’s with winds about 13 MPH.

Full sun, windy upper sixties and the day after a dry front came through. Some butterflies are total rags and almost unidentifiable but keep on going. Verbena bonariensis, Lantana and Mexican Sunflowers were the choices today, but not Butterfly bush.

10:30 a.m.- 1 p.m. Weather: 83°-85°, mostly sunny. Nectar: Spanish needles, Brazilian pepper, jasmine tree. LCooper, SMoore, BVolkle

Full sun, windy and much coooler in upper sixties today after a dry frontal system passed. We are very dry here with a dry outlook as well. Fierst day without any Monarch sightings!

Totally overcast and mid to high 70’s
Some of the Tropical Checkered Skippers could have been Common Checkered-Skipper, but of the ones I did positively ID they were all Tropical.

Annual “Death by Skipper” field trip. Participants: Linda Cooper, JCrosby, NCrosby, DCutler, AGrimm, EPerry, MReese, PStrauss, BVolkle, RWarner,LWilliams, BZaremba

Sunny and 57 degrees. Released 3 female Black Swallowtails. One stayed in the butterfly garden. Two Painted Ladies visited the garden. The Monarchs haven’t been seen Tues the 1st. Since Wed the 2bd, it has been chilly windy and rainy. Raised a total of 37 Monarchs in summer of 2019.

Very surprised to see an E. Tiger Swallowtail today and a fresh Red Admiral sipped and flew off quickly. 2nd day without any Monarch butterfly sightings. Verbena todays choice again.

Sunny, breezy 42°-63° and second day of no Monarch sightings.

Participants: EPerry, RWarner, LCooper, JCrosby, NCrosby, REpstein, SFarnsworth, AGrimm, JLampkin, DMcElveen, SMoore, LWilliams, BZaremba, NPrine, MReese

The Bull Creek “fabulous five” on Sunday, Oct. 6th: Dotted, Meske’s, Berry’s, Arogos, Dusted! As far as I know this has not been done in a single day. (EPerry)

Sightings for the past few days.

Cloudy, high 72° and short showers in between. Saw the Variegated Fritillary at 09:00 and the Cabbage at 15:30. No Monarchs for days now.

Sunny & 67 degrees with light breeze. One Monarch visited garden #2490

Nice purple sheen on some of the Ocolas.

Williams Road Unit 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Weather: 77°-86° winds-8-13 mph. Mostly cloudy with intermittent sun. LCooper, SFarnsworth, DMcElveen.

Nectar sources; Verbena bonariensis, Lantana, Butterfly bush and Catnip that had most of the Cabbage Whites working. Monarchs on Butterfly bushes. Mixed skies into mid seventies.

2nd. time the sulphur was seen in the yard, but first for me.

highlights of a 70 minute visit, 1130 to 1240….mixed sun and clouds, breezy mid 70s. Ocola Skipper was seen twice, as I headed in and as I was leaving, at the exact same spot as 9 days ago, on salvia and marigolds; presumed to be the same individual. Still some Cloudless Sulphurs around. Buckeyes remain the most abundant species by far around here.

very warm and sunny, I just investigated several clumps of Bidens to see what I could photograph

A few hours of sun makes all the difference in the world! Sachem was new for me in Sullivan County.

Adult Brazilian Skipper stopped briefly to nectar at Hosta flowers in front of restaurant—did not have time to get a photo.

Similar to last week, lots of California Sisters and California Tortoiseshells.

1” of rain the first in many weeks brought out the butterflies! I have never seen this many Monarchs in my yard!

Start weather: Clear, 58 degrees, 7mph wind
End weather: Clear, 70 degrees, 7mph wind
Start time: 10:30am
End time: 3:30pm
Ronda Spink, Dennis Dunlap, and Jack Reinoehl

Chance sighting of a Florida purplewing. Photo credit: G. Poutas

Count cut short by p.m. showers

Not ideal conditions for butterflying with 100% cloud cover, 15 mph winds, and sprinkles and finally rain. I was surprised in 1 hour how many butterflies I was able to see. The next couple of days are supposed to have freezing temperatures Thursday and Friday night.

Sunny, low 70’s but with temps dropping.

Mostly Sunny 51°/71° with a light north breeze. Surprised to see a Black Swallowtail Cat in Parsley today.

71 degrees and sunny.

With Janet Bowers
8:30 - 11:30, 76-84
Restored mesic palmetto flatwoods qith hammocks, regularly burned.
Palmetto Skippers are tough to find so it was a delight to find two. The photo was taken by crawling under the Elephant’s Foot plant and shooting upwards.
Kudos to Hillsborough COunty for a superb job of habitat restoration and protection on all 66 of its natural areas.

I was delighted to see sun, temp’s to the low 70’s and winds decreased to about 10 MPH today after 2 days of cold, gray windy weather. I thought there would be no butterflies at all. Observations were done throughout the afternoon as I worked in the gardens. There were clouds of mixed skippers in front and back gardens >50 in all. I was also happy to have 15 flying species, with Monarch, Black Swallowtail and Common Buckeye caterpillars. In addition, there are BS, CB, Red-spotted Purple and Spicebush Swallowtail pupa in the yard. I did get photo documentation of all species.

Have not had hummers for 2 weeks. Partly sunny day around 3:30 pm and windy. A Variegated Fritillary also in front yard.

First Long-tailed for the season.Sunny, breezy 62° today. Have Black Swallowtail cats still here.

First Long-tailed seen in my garden

Morning rain with a cold frontal passage. Afternoon sunshine and upper 50’s.

Chilly day. Sunny with temp of 50degrees. Saw a Painted Lady, but no others-as temperatures have been dropping. Winds today 15 to 20mph

Another good day in the yard with diversity and slightly increased numbers included fresh Red Admirals, American Ladies and Monarchs. Temps low 70’s, ~8 MPH wind, sunny. Clouded Skipper in good condition seen. I took images of it and many other butterflies today but when I went to d/l the memory card tonight I had never placed it back in the camera yesterday. Hopefully, it’ll be around again tomorrow. I have one image from another camera that shows Eastern Comma, Red Admiral and Question Mark on a combination of peaches and bananas. I was surprised to see the QM was so much larger the EC.

Cooler temps. 62 deg

45th butterfly species recorded in our garden for 2019.

Today was the first time we IDed a Southern Broken-Dash in our yard! And a beautiful one at that. It is very dry except in our yard so most all the butterflies in the neighborhood are here. We worry about the Zebra Heliconias who usually nectar in the shade of the community lot which is overgrown with Snow Square Stem. The Long-tail Skippers also usually there have joined the others on our zinnias, butterfly bush, Gallarida, passion vine and more.

The Milbert’s Tortoiseshell landed on me and stayed on my jeans for over 30 minutes when I had to disturb it. I hated to but I couldn’t stay there all day! Many more butterflies to look at. My Verbena bonariensis was very active along with my Senorita Rosalita cleomes.

1 hr 20 minute visit, after 4 days of cold weather (evening temps as low as the 40s) and rain from a subtropical storm. The storm, plus the fact the “Wild play” area has been completely mowed since my prior visit, likely contributed to the lack of Cloudless Sulphurs after their presence for over 2 months. None were seen at the two Point Lookout sites either.

9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. worked fall wildflowers on Kissimmee RD, Durden Rd, Blood Rd and Kissimmee River area. Weather: 78°-86°, sun all day, light winds. Nectar: liatris, carphephorus, Florida Elephant’s Foot. LCooper, SFarnsworth, NPrine.

Mostly cloudy, breezy mainly Eastery (ENE to SSE), 41°/65°. 2 Black Swallowtail cats on Parsley.

Surveyed west loop area with liatris/carphehorus/honeycomb-head from 9 am to 2:30p; a cool start to the morning started things off slow. A noticeable decline from last week but still lots of good skippers, and we did get “The Bull Creek Fabulous Five: dotted, Meske’s, Berry’s, dusted, arogos.” Interesting Berry’s today; the strong field mark is the bold white hw veins; one was so fresh the veins hadn’t lost any scales yet, but using other cues like body shape, color, head color, size, fringe color, it comes out Berry’s! We saw two like this. Meske’s are late risers if you’re wanting to see them, stay ‘til afternoon. EPerry & RWarner, a good time was had by all!

(25-375) Great day with plenty of sunshine. Lots of Long-tailed Skippers passing through the park and a high count for Monk Skipper.

85 degrees full sun. Very dry. Glassberg shows a similar Sleepy Orange and describes it as dry weather winter form. I do NOT see Funereal Duskywing on this list? [Funereal Duskywing may be a new state record? MR]

Evan though we have strong sunshine and little air movement we have less sightings daily with adequate nectar sources available but quite cool overnights.

Weedy field in rear of medical complex surprised me. Monarch came to wooded area with trees about 80/90 feet tall and the Monarch flew up and over these seemingly effortlessly.

Seen at the intersection with N. State Rd. flying across the gas station.

Surveyed 9:30 to 3:30 on west loop; the liatris is going-off .7 mile west after passing Crossroad. Look for the cut stump a hundred feet from the road shoulder (on the inside of the loop). Time went fast; it was beautiful and full of activity. EPerry & RWarner; a good time was had by all!

Warm, sunny, winds 7 MPH in low 70’s. Was happy to have 2 Long-tailed Skippers here - one with 1 tail and one with no tails. Common Buckeyes have doubled in numbers as have the Monarch’s. Fiery and Sachem skippers continue to have good numbers and Ocola Skippers were almost in double digits. Pleased to have 17 species flying in the yard at this date. 2019 is the best year I’ve had for butterflies in the yard. Black Swallowtail, Common Buckeye and Monarch caterpillars continue on there host plant. Black Swallowtail, Spicebush Swallowtail, Common Buckeye, and Red-spotted Purple pupa still here.

California Tortoiseshell migration seems to be over, here anyway. Noticeably absent, not a single Cabbage White seen today.

Seems nectar sources have changed a bit with Profusion Zinnias being in favor somewhat. An inch of rain last week helped with some more growing too.

With nectar sources almost completely depleted, the number of species continues to decline. A few strongholds still…

We had a filling frost on Oct 11 so was anxious to walk my survey route to see how many butterflies I would see. The weather was not ideal with winds up to 35 mph, temps around 55 degrees but it was sunny. I was out for around 1.5 hours.

Two Milbert’s Tortoiseshells were surprise visitors to the Buddleia bush next to my office building.

Very windy and mostly cloudy with temperature only into upper fifties, surprised me to see anything today. Black Swallowtail Cats hanging on in Parsley.

Gorgeous Gorgeous Gorgeous! What a magnificent being!

Targeted the Dukes Skipper seen in this area along the Altamaha River in years past.

With the FLorida Birding and Nature Festival.
John Lampkin, Rob Epstein and Brandt Hennigsen, co-leaders; Bert Alm, Nikki Bales and Vicki Parsons.
1 - 3:30; 100% cloudy giving way to sprinkles 82 degrees and comfortable.
Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak and Mangrove Skipper are new site records.

Beautiful fall day high to be in the 70’s! Sunny around noon. Gulf Fritillary is on it’s host plant, Passion Vine.

Sunny With light breeze and 58 degrees.

31° to 62° changeable skies light breeze. Our first light frost did not kill everything but it is hurting. Today’s sighting of the Red-banded Hairstreak is the first for this year! Extremely slow for any hirstreaks nearby in 2019.

Quite late at this latitude.

Partly cloudy, 86 degrees, 2:15pm - 4:30pm.

9:30am - 3:15pm. Mostly sunny, 88 degrees. West loop in Liatris areas.

47°-69°, mostly sunny light air movement. Mexican Sunflowers seem to be finished for butterflies although they still look good. Verbena and Lantana are the only plants being used at this point in time.

45 minute visit, bright sun, upper 60s. No frost here yet but more cold damp days than sunny ones recently.

Cloudy, 82 degrees. So Happy to see the Little Metalmarks! They are our neighborhood speciality and we don’t see them often enough.

Mostly cloudy, morning rain, low 60’s.

Great to meet Jeffrey Belth today and show him around. Things are on the wind-down but still lots of good skippers if you know where to look. Go right on loop west, when you get to Crossroad go another .7 of a mile on loop west. Surveyed liatris & honeycombhead bloom area from 10:30 to 3:00. A good time was had by all.

Baccharis in full bloom, only butterflies visiting were Buckeyes.

California Tortoiseshells accompanied today by Mourning Cloaks, heading south.

47°-64° mostly sunny light air movement.

Sunshine upper 50’s and breezy.

With Jane Lampkin
9:30-12:30; sunny, temps mid-70’s
Site is known for its abundant Mangrove Buckeyes.

Clouds were rolling in when we arrived & we got rained out after a few minutes.

A late-season Monarch, Common Buckeye on buddleia, Orange Sulphur on purple-top vervain. It’s not winter yet here in Delaware!

Sunny, 72 degrees, occasional light southwest breeze, 2-3:30 pm. Similar but far fewer species and individuals than at nearby Meldahl Lock and Dam. Most butterflies along the shoreline.

Sunny, 58-72 degrees, occasional light southwest breeze, 10:45 am to 2:00 pm. Large numbers of sulphurs, buckeyes, Variegated Fritillaries and Fiery Skippers on upstream trail, the southern pierids in the downstream shoreline area.

32°-67° under mostly sunny skies light air movement. Overnight/dawn frosts have slowly diminished nectar sources here.

Have two blooming tropical butterfly weed plants. Late today I saw 4 Monarchs on the plants. It is evening now with showers predicted.

Great day in the garden, sunny, 65, with 5-6 MPH wind. Did some yard work while checking out the butterflies. Noted an increase of Monarch’s mid-day so notified KH & RH who tag for the Cape May Bird Observatory in my yard. They tagged 25 Monarchs before they left with more left to tag. Excited to have a Sleepy Orange make several stops in the yard to nectar. My first here since 9/16/19. Also saw 2 Long-tailed Skippers in the yard plus a increase in Orange Sulphurs and perhaps my high number for the year for the yard but not sure. Images of all species. Red Admiral and Eastern Comma nectaring on rotten peaches.

I can’t believe I saw a Monarch on Oct. 24th. I also saw a skipper, but could not ID it. This is why I don’t cut the garden back.

Partly cloudy, 86 degrees, humid. 9:45am - 1025am. Nectar plants include Wild Sage, Blue Porterweed, Snow Square stem, Bidens alba, Sea Oxeye, Scorpiontail, Railroad vine. With Leigh Williams and Emily Graves.

Sunny day, low 60’s after cool days and frost at night. Butterfly landed briefly on winterfat plant in my yard.

Surprised to see the swallowtail.

Windy & cloudy day afield with Jeff Belth

10:00am-2:00pm
Breezy & cloudy but a few bugs around!

Sunny, high of 53, winds at 10+mph. Based on the forecast, this was probably the last butterflies of the year. If so, this will be the first time since at least 2005 that we haven’t had a report of a Wisconsin butterfly in November.

Light rain before we finished our walk. Quite humid and 80 degrees.