Backyard Jewels

   Last Monday decided to take a break from my many projects and my two youngest and I walked around the field behind my trailer.  Officially, the field is on Berne Union school property, and is part of the cross country team's race course.  While in the picture below it doesn't look like much, on either side of the path, its loaded with clover.  While clover is not native to the area, it certainly is one doosey of a butterfly magnet.
  One of the first butterflies that we saw was Variegated Fritillary, a new one for the BBY, and not necessarily unexpected.  I usually see a handful of these at The Ridges each summer.  And, strangely enough, the most common butterfly of the day was Common Buckeye, although there were a lot of sulphurs and I have trouble telling Clouded from Orange at a distance, so probably a few went uncounted.  But still, in nearly fourteen years of butterfly observation, this is the first time that Buckeye was the most tallied species.  I know there is a lot of Plantago in the field as well as clover.  That probably explains it.

Variegated Fritillary

The magic field behind Berne Union School.  Good mothing in here as well.

Peck's Skipper

  Ended up with 22 species and 149 individuals, both of which rank third in their respective categories for the year.  Not bad for a spontaneous trip out the back door!  Total species for the BBY stands at 68, although at work yesterday I think I saw Fiery Skipper, which would be number 69, but the photo on my phone is hard to see and I cannot figure out how to get the image off of my phone onto the computer.  Hopefully I will get time at work tomorrow to go looking for it again, this time with a real camera.