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