Took a drive through the refuge this evening and finally found a few flutterers. I'm not entirely sure on that second Comma, considering the ID is being made from the underside of the wing (the sunlight made the wings semi-translucent).
I noticed this guy flitting about this afternoon and got a smile watching him (Black Swallowtail, male). He was perched in the top of one of my autumn olive bushes (yes, I know, but they smell soooo good in spring!); and he was so territorial, he was chasing everything that moved. He chased off a Spicebush Swallowtail and a Red Admiral; he was even chasing birds! There's a family of mockingbirds in a nearby pine branch and the parents are busily bringing in food for the babies, and every few minutes when one would fly over, he'd leave his perch and follow it for a good 15 feet before returning to his post. Such a brave little guy!
Look who visited us today...a lone male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail! The lack of the Tigers this year really has me curious. They've been so rare this year, compared to last. What gives? During a short walk at Maxey Marsh Trail, I was visited by the biggest, bluest Red-Spotted Purple I think I've ever seen. It was glorious!
Both on the farm and in the PRNWR, we got a variety of sightings this weekend. Several firsts for the year! (Edit: I'm going to revisit the Spicebush/Pipevine photos, just to be sure...)
The following are some sightings from the previous few months. I started this site last year when I was first introduced to the staggering amount of butterflies both here on my farm and in the nearby Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge, but haven't been able to keep it up much. I hope to rectify that, starting now...partially because this has been a strange year so far. I wish I would have kept better track of sighting dates last year, because it seems like we're way behind this year. I'm not sure if it was the rough winter we had or if there's some other reason, but we've just not had the amount of butterflies we had last year. My butterfly bushes died all the way back over the winter and are just now starting to bloom, but I've got tons of coneflowers and other butterfly-attracting blooms in my beds, and visitors are few and far between this year. So I will use this blog to log and tag sightings to check next year.
Last year, we had hundreds of the various morphs of Tiger Swallowtails; this year, I've only seen one. I haven't seen a single Clearwing, either. We're way early on Monarchs though; I've been seeing them for months now, all over the place. I've seen a couple Red-Spotted Purples, a single Red Admiral, a couple Great Spangled Fritillaries, a Pipevine Swallowtail, and a few of the Cabbage Whites and various Sulphurs. I've only seen a handful of Viceroys, too, and they were absolutely everywhere last year. On the other hand, I do believe I've seen a Zebra Swallowtail in the refuge twice now; I just haven't been able to get a photo to positively identify it (fingers crossed!). So here starts my sighting log. |
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