Thursday, June 30, 2011

Perry County, Ohio

Had opportunity to visit my friend Diane Brooks' garden today.  Had a lot of fun gabbing with Diane about bugs, probably too much fun as I neglected my documentation duties to an extent.  Meaning I didn't get as many pics as I should've.  Wanted to get a pic of Diane with her garden but totally spaced it.  Well, I will be visiting her place again in August probably, so I will do better then.
  Both Diane and I were hoping to find Coral Hairstreak.  She had one a couple weeks ago.  Coral's are notorious for nectaring on Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) and the BW is blooming now, although not quite at peak bloom yet.  So Diane took me to a field adjacent to her property that had a good bit of BW, but no Corals.  No Corals in her beautiful gardens at home either.  Oh well, maybe next time.
  While Diane is a jill of many trades (bugs, plants, koi, etc), she seems to have a special affinity for raising our big, beautiful native silk moths, such as Cecropia Moths, Io Moths, and others.  She currently needs to find homes for over 100 Cecropia eggs!  Her husband has built her some pretty nifty "cat cages" to do all of this caterpillar nurturing.
  When I left Diane's it was with the full intent of buzzing down to The Ridges in Athens, but then some things got in the way.  Got about two miles down the road and had a very sudden and serious need to use the restroom.  About the same time I saw an unfenced field loaded with Butterfly Weed.  So, as I pulled off and raced into the woods to deal with issue #1, I took a look at the cell phone and was shocked by how late it was, already after 1:00 PM.  I decided by the time I dealt with issue #1, I probably wouldn't have time to make it to Athens, so instead I took advantage of issue #2, an unattended field full of Butterfly Weed, still holding out hope for Coral Hairstreak.
  Still no Coral Hairstreak, but I did see some Hummingbird Moths and got good pics of Snowberry Hummingbird Moth.  Also saw Clearwing Hummingbird Moth but it was less cooperative for photographing.  At the BW field I did pick up one new species for the BBY, Common Wood Nymph, although I could not get a pic of it either.  So, all in all, a most enjoyable day.
  Also had the opportunity to ride through New Straitsville, Ohio.  At the entry into town it declares itself an "ATV Friendly Community".  Not sure what that means.  It also proudly advertises its Moonshine Festival which takes place Memorial Day weekend.  So, a bunch of drunken, sad, Appalachians on ATV's.  Hmmm?  Kind of a scary thought!
mystery skipper at Diane's place

Sign at emergency restroom parking lot.

Snowberry Hummingbird Moth

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Blue Blessing!

Got off work yesterday an hour or so early so went to Clear Creek Metro park.  Went to a section I rarely visit, Good Prairie and Prairie Warbler Trail.  Rarely go there because Clear Creek Road past the Fern Trail parking area gets very rough, with lots of potholes, loose gravel, and  steep drop-offs into the creek lacking guard rails, and about an extra four miles worth of this.  Not the funnest of roads on the motorcycle.
 So glad I did though.  Wasn't much flying (or blooming) in the prairie except for Silver-spotted Skipper on Baptisia (I think).  But the milkweed near the parking area yielded a couple good finds, including Pepper and Salt Skipper and Banded Hairstreak.  But the best find was along Prairie Warbler Trail, about 50 yards from its upper entry to the picnic area.  On the left was a row of perhaps a dozen Black Cohosh plants.  Appalachian Azure adults, whose (who's?) host is Black Cohosh, had been seen earlier in the season in a different section of the park.  So, I thought, what the heck, I have time, lets look at flower buds for awhile and see if we find any caterpillars.  On the next to last plant in the row, there it was, complete with attending ant!
 Ants attend many species of Blue's caterpillars for the "honeydew" that the cat excretes.  In return for the sugary food, the ant protects the caterpillar from harm.  My understanding is that the ants take the caterpillar down into its hill where it safely pupates.  Of course, the tricky part is after the butterfly ecloses (emerges).  The butterfly now has to get back out of the ant hill without being attacked by the ants.  Funny how God arranged all this stuff!
Appalachian Azure caterpillar with attending ant

Little Glassywing

Pepper and Salt Skipper.  Also note Great Spangled Fritillaries in background and Grape Plume Moth in upper left.

Banded Hairstreak
 So anyways, added species number 59 for the BBY with the Appalachian Azure.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Southern Ohio

  Went in search of Golden Banded-Skipper on Monday to southern Ohio between Portsmouth and West Union.  And for the first time this year, I actually found what I went in search of!  Go figure.
  First stop was along Bridle Trail #5 at Shawnee State Forest.  Strapped a saddle onto the bike and tore down the trail.  Just kidding!  Parked at the roadblock in front of the No Parking sign and walked down the trail.  The trip up the trail was pretty slow, from a butterfly perspective.  It was a little chilly and overcast.  Turned around at the top of the ridge (about 3/4 mile later) and the trip down was much better with the sun shinging brightly.  Picked up two species new to the BBY: Golden Banded-Skipper and Red-banded Hairstreak.  Picked up a couple handfuls of black raspberries also.  Yum!  A total of 16 species and 118 individuals, almost half of the individuals being Silver-spotted Skippers.
  About 20 miles down the road is Lynx Prairie, a nature conservancy site.  A little tricky to find as the entrance is located in the back of a cemetary.  This site has a series of woodland openings that have converted back to prairie.  You enter one of these prairie openings shortly after getting onto the trail.  The other openings are sort of tucked in the back and not readily visible.  Take the green trail and you will go through a couple more openings.  These far back openings had much better nectar supplies, and therefore better bugs.  Once again, butterfly wise, things started slow, but picked up after awhile, once I got to the back section.  Here I picked up four new species to the BBY: Southern Cloudywing, Edward's Hairstreak, Dun Skipper, and Delaware Skipper.  These first two were also life butterflies for me.  Total of 18 species and 69 individuals here.  For the day, 26 species, my best one-day total so far, although Trimble still has the record for most species at a single site with 25.
Golden Banded-Skipper

Red-banded Hairstreak

Zebra Swallowtail, I love Zebras.


Dun Skipper

Delaware Skipper

Edward's Hairstreak

Southern Cloudywing
 

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Berne Union Moth Night

  I had tried moth lighting at my home a couple times, but generally have not had a lot of visitors.  So, last night went to the wet meadowy area behind the school next door (Berne Union).  There is a long, thin meadow with a road, surrounded by woods and a creek on one side.  Figured if anywhere would be good moth habitat, that would be it.  And I nailed it!  I found it interesting that different species would arrive at certain times, so for example the Io Moths were among the first to arrive, the different Tigers all arrived about the same time, etc.  Stayed out until about 1AM.
  I am not real good with moths, yet, but have been able to ID most of them.  Currently have 29 species on last night's list.  I tend to focus on bigger moths.  Since I am still new at this I am leaving learning the micros for another time.  Last nights list, in alphabetical order rather than taxonomic: Anna Tiger Moth, Arched Hooktip, Ash Sphinx, Banded Tussock Moth, Beautiful Wood Nymph, Bisected Honey Locust Moth, Black Bordered Lemon Moth, Common Angle, Common SPring Moth, Delicate Cycnia, Ferguson's Scallop Shell, Giant Leopard Moth, Grape Leaffolder Moth, Grape Plume Moth, Green Leuconycta, Hagen's Sphinx, Hickory Tussock Moth, Io Moth, Isabella Tiger Moth, Leconte's Haploa, Lesser Maple Spanworm Moth, Oak Beauty, Polyphemus Moth, Rosy Maple Moth, Spotted Apetelodes, The Hebrew, Virginian Tiger Moth and White-headed Prominent.
Grape Plume Moth

Ash Sphinx

Hagen's Sphinx

Oak Beauty

Polyphemus Moth

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Pickaway County, Ohio

Visited a couple of the limited number of natural areas in Pickaway County.  Took the truck as small but intense thunderstorms were popping all around.  Fortunately weather cleared late morning, and I only got sprinkled on briefly.  I had three sites I wanted to visit, but was not able to make it to Marion State Park.  Ran out of time.
  First stop was at Calamus Swamp southwest of Circleville.  Calamus is owned and maintained by Columbus Audubon.  All of our spring rains showed as the lake level was way up.  Most of the trail around the lake was underwater, as was sections of the boardwalk across the lake.  Had to find my way across ten feet of ankle deep water to even get to the boardwalk.  Was rather disappointed with the few number of butterflies and with the general maintenance level of the site.  Small trees down on the boardwalk along with a dead raccoon on the boardwalk.  The raccoon was pretty flat so he'd been there for awhile.  Only saw six species of butterflies and seven total butterflies.  Was able to get good pics of Common Buckeye which I did need.  For what the site lacked in butterflies it certainly made up for with dragonflies, including the spreadwing pictured below that I am having some ID problems with.
  Next, and last stop, was Stage's Pond, an ODNR site northeast of Circleville.  A wide variety of habitats including old woods, young woods, old field, lake, and butterfly gardens.  Considering the great habitat, only picked up 15 species, but two were new to the BBY: Hackberry Emperor and Crossline Skipper.  Total of 36 butterflies.  Once again, lots of great dragonflies though.  When I do my big dragonfly year in the future, I will definitely make several trips here.  Flies were awful though.  I had humored my wife and used Skin-So-Soft before I left which offered some bug protection, but flies buzzing my head were driving me nuts.  I pulled out and made a generous application of DEET, and no more flies.
  The butterfly gardens were in front of a building at the end of a blocked drive.  I assume it is a maintenance building of some sort.  Two species of native milkweeds were planted (Butterfly Weed and COmmon Milkweed) along with some native sunflowers.  The milkweeds were in full bloom, probably two weeks ahead of their wild growing relatives.  I assume heat off the building and the south exposure had something to do with that.
A very swampy Calamus Swamp

mystery Spreadwing


Hackberry Emperor

Stage's Pond, literally

Crossline Skipper on Common Milkweed
  Species list for the day: Cabbage White, Summer Azure, Eastern-tailed Blue, Silver-spotted Skipper, Common Buckeye, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Hackberry Emperor, Northern Pearly-eye, Zabulon Skipper, Pearl Crescent, Orange Sulphur, Clouded Sulphur, Peck's SKipper, Eastern Comma, Crossline Skipper, Silvery Checkerspot.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

OMG! Trimble Community Forest

 Had a great three hour visit at Trimble Community Forest.  Got a little bit of a late start as I chose to sleep-in (until 6:30 ooooh, ahhh) and had to go get the dead lawn mower from the repair shop.  But got there a little before 10:00AM.  Took the truck as it looked like it might be hard to find, and its hard to look at roadmaps while your on the bike.  Also, I had concerns how much of the roads would be gravel.  Gravel roads on a street cruiser are a little tricky.  As I suspected, several roads were gravel.
 Was an interesting start to the visit.  I had barely started down the gravel path when a little white car flies by, sputtering and kicking up gravel.  He wasn't able to make it up the hill with sputtering and spinning.  He backed back down the hill, doing a Dukes of Hazard move to turn around, nearly ending up in the ditch.  He was cussing out his girlfriend, the car, his empty gas tank, etc.  I had just filled my lawn mower gas can, so I offered it to the guy.  He was very polite to me.  The extra gallon and half of a gas got him up the hill and on to better places (I hope!).  I also had a deer doing a lot of huffing at me as I was packing up to leave the truck.
 The section of the forest I visited is also the land lab for the local Trimble school district.  Several oil/gas storage containers along the path.  Every now and then some odor but not much.  Also, ne evidence of leakage.  I do hope the Trimble schools take full advantage of such a cool site!
 The first part of the walk was along a small creek.  Lots of flies, glad I had the DEET.  Also lots of butterflies.  I was totally shocked by the large number of commas I was seeing.  Normally I see one or maybe two a trip.  I had probably six in the first 100 yards of the walk.
 There is also an upper section of the site, the trail to the upper section blocked by a fallen white oak.  Climbed over the oak and am glad I did.  Picked up five additional species beyond the oak, two of which were new to the BBY.  For the day I had five new species for the BBY: Banded Hairstreak, Hoary Edge, Peck's Skipper, Little Glassywing, and Great Spangled Fritillary.  The Hoary Edge was a lifer for me and one I have been hoping to run into for the past two years.  For the day a total of 25 species, the best one day total so far!  129 individual butterflies, second best one day total so far for the year.
 Also saw a lifer dragonfly along the small creek, Arrowhead Spiketail.  I love the arrows along the top of the abdomen!

Banded Hairstreak

Peck's Skipper

Hoary Edge

Silvery Checkerspot

Arrowhead Spiketail
 Got back to the truck and was totally saturated in sweat.  Wished I had brought an extra t-shirt.  Wrapped the shirt around the passenger seat and rolled the window down so it could sort of dry before I stopped for lunch.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Clear Creek, again!

Got off work early today so I made a quick trip to Clear Creek Metro Park.  I was surprised by how slow butterfly activity was.  Next to no nectar except for clovers.  Walked the Creekside Trail.  Water level in creek is back down to normal.  Has been running high all spring.
 The only butterflies available in quantity were Satyrs.  There are potentially three that could be found at Clear Creek: Gemmed, Carolina, and Little Wood.  I cannot tell the three apart in flight.  So, even though I saw probably 20 satyrs, I was only able to get good ID's on three, 2 Carolinas and a Little Wood.  Also had a few Azures seemingly fall out of the sky at me, but then they would exit as fast and high as they had appeared.  Probably Summer Azure, but since there is rumor of Appalachian Azure at Clear Creek, I cannot assume anything, and since I did not get a good look at any of them, officially I saw no Azures.
Gray Petaltail

Long distance shot of Northern Pearly-eye
 One new species for the BBY, Northern Pearly-eye.  They were pretty wound up like their Satyr cousins, but I did manage to have a couple long distance cooperators, hence blurry but effective pictures.
 In my mind, the most exciting find of the day was a Gray Petaltail dragonfly, a first for me.  It was very cooperative, posing on the side of a tree.  Also had several Ebony Jewelwing damselflies.  I hope to do a Big Dragonfly Year in 2012 or 13.  Hope the Petaltails are still around!

Cloudywing Blues

  On May 28, 2011 I visited Clear Creek Metro Park, in search of Appalachian Azures and Hairstreaks.  Had information from a reliable source that Appalachians would be found on Fern Trail within a batch of Black Cohosh plants.  Made my way to Fern Trail, found the Cohosh, and even tromped through the middle of the patch.  Stirred up no Azures.  I had also been told once about White M Hairstreaks near the top of this same trail, so I continued uphill.  No Hairstreaks.
  Feeling a bit discouraged, continue out into the field on Chestnut Ridge Trail where I did find a couple of cloudywings, which would be new for the BBY.  Got some pictures.  As I put the camera back around my neck something started stinging my back.  I had a sweat bee or something stuck inside my shirt, and it was stinging as it worked its way down my back.  My bizarre dance in the middle of the field was doing nothing to remove the sweat bee so I found a stick and after much effort was able to remove the bee from my shirt.
  I had no more than finished the bee escapade then the cell phone starts ringing.  Clear Creek is the black hole of cell service.  All I knew was that my wife was using my daughter's phone and she was trying very hard to reach me.  Too many distractions to really enjoy my time out and to do a good job of tracking butterflies.
  I waited awhile to post this trip as I have been seeking help for the ID of the Cloudywing.  The bug had white spots where all of my field guides said there should not be white spots.  The potential Cloudywings in the Clear Creek area were Northern, Southern, and Confused.  I was leaning towards Northern, despite the excess of spots.  My reasons were the Confused would be a ways out of its range, as according to Kaufman, the Confused is confined to the southwestern section of Ohio.  Also, the Confused is supposed to have a pale face, and the one fair pic I had of its face looked like a milk chocolate color to me, not pale.  I ruled out Southern because Kaufman very specifically mentions how the white spots in a Southern are aligned a certain way, and mine were definitely out of that alignment, leaving me Northern.  I posted the pics to several butterfly listserves and got the following results (including my Northern vote): Northern 3 votes, Southern 2 votes, Confused 1 vote.  I'm calling it Northern and will probably send the pics to BAMONA and see if they dispute it.
The difficult cloudywing