Butterflies of Summer & More

Great Spangled Fritillary feeds on Spotted Knapweed

We haven't had the best showing of butterflies this summer, but it hasn't been terrible either. Some species seem conspicuously absent while others experienced a better than average season. For example, Great Spangled Fritillaries have been fairly widespread, while the normally common Morning Cloak butterflies have been hard to come by.Year to year and season to season there are many factors that determine butterfly abundance. Everything from weather to the number of predators, to the condition and abundance of the butterflies' food plants are all important factors. Parasitic wasps certainly take their toll. One of the Baltimore Checkerspot pupae that I had been monitoring ultimately hatched a wasp instead of a butterfly. Obviously an ichneumon  wasp had injected an egg right into the chrysalis. After the egg hatched, the wasp grub destroyed the developing butterfly. Fortunately, checkerspots had a lot of successes this year and could afford some losses.

The Northern Pearly-eyed  belongs to the butterfly family called the "browns"

The outer wings of the Pearly-eyed are replete with eye-spots

Top wings show a different configuration of eye-spots.

A Northern Pearly-eyed sneaks through the honeysuckle branches

The Eyed Brown breeds alongside checkerspots in one of our wetlands

The Common Wood Nymph was quite common in the fields this season

This Common Wood Nymph shows yellow around its 2 prominent eye-spots - an unusual variation in this region

The Painted Lady can be found on several continents

The American Lady has an intricate spiderweb design on its underwing as well as 2 very large eye-spots

One of many hairstreak butterflies found this season

The Hickory Hairstreak was more common this year than last

The Banded Hairstreak was a bit hard to find this season

Hickory Hairstreak in all its subtle glory

Rare now for about 5 years - the colorful Acadian Hairstreak

Baltimore Checkerspots remain the butterfly story of the season, since they were common in all suitable habitat

Nothing subtle about this beauty

A Checkerspot, freshly emerged from its chrysalis, rests on the unopened chrysalis of a neighbor 

The Little Glassywing Skipper on a Heal All flower

The Dun Skipper feeding on Valerian flowers 

The Hummingbird Moth gets nectar from Common Milkweed flowers.

Eight-spot Forester moth feeds on milkweed

Sqaure-stemmed Monkey flower grows along the creeks and in the beaver meadows

Thimbleweed  is one of the anemones that grows in open areas

Buttonbush has been flowering for over 2 weeks in a small wet meadow near our main reforestation field

Royal Catchfly - from a distance it looks to some like Cardinal Flower, but is no relation

Virgin's Bower - a native clematis