Today Barry Marts and I had a great filed trip visiting two new locations. Short Mountain WMA in Hardy county and Nathaniel Mountain WMA in Hampshire/Hardy counties. As is sometimes the case, unplanned cirumstances lead to sightings we would not have had if our orginal plan had worked out. We drove up to Short Mountain WMA first and expected to drive to the middle saddle area between the ridges where the creek wetlands are and do our sorties from there. However, the entrance gate was locked (on a weekend?) and we ended up walking about 4 miles round trip. We treked up and over the the west ridge to get to the saddle area. This paid dividends as we saw dozens of Little Wood-Satyrs and Dreamy Duskywings and several Hobomok Skippers including a female (which dwarfs the male of this species). Once in the saddle area our notables included a Common Roadside-Skipper, the first Indian Skippers of the year and a few Azure sp.’s in various stages of wear. Now is the time when the first “Summer” Azures (C. neglecta) are getting ready to emerge. Cherry Gall Azure (C. serotina) is currently is flight. After a couple of hours we started the long walk back to the car. Many very large and pale yellow Tiger Swallowtails (likely Appalachian Tiger) escorted us along the way but none ever sat down for closer examination. On the way back a large “Blue” butterfly caught our eyes in flight overhead very close to us and if I was in California I would have had a Blue Copper (that’s how noticable the size difference on this Azure was compared to the others we had seen). To me the wing surface area seemed double the previous Celastrinas. There was no doubt in my mind that it was an Appalachian Azure. It did sit down breifly for a poor, bad angle, harsh sunlight shot. I’m sure there was Black Cohosh somewhere on the vegetated hillside but common sense and Barry prevented me from charging through a bunch of Poison Ivy to get up the hill to look.
Next, we drove over to Nathaniel Mountain WMA. We searched a couple of areas where the access road crossed over one of two power line cuts going up and over the ridge. This is a large WMA (10,675 acres) with a high point just over 3,000ft. Looking east you can see North Mountain near Wardensville, WV and looking west you can look into the valley where Moorefield, WV is located and see the Alleghany Front. The view was stunning on a clear day like today! In the power line cuts our notables included another Common Roadside-Skipper, more Indian Skippers and Hobomok Skippers, a first of year American Copper, a first of year Peck’s Skipper, a fresh Painted Lady and the best butterfly of the day… a lifer Hoary Edge nectoring on Red Clover. We saw a total of 26 species.
* = FOY Pipevine Swalowtail 6 Tiger Swallowtail sp. 12 Spicebush Swallowtail 5 Zebra Swallowtail 1 Cabbage White 2 Clouded Sulphur 5 Orange Sulphur 4 *American Copper 1 Eastern Tailed-Blue 10 Azure sp. 3 Appalachian Azure 1 *Summer Azure 1 C. negelcta Silvery Checkerspot 2 Pearl Crescent 20 American Lady 1 *Painted Lady 1 Little Wood-Satyr 35+ Silver-spotted Skipper 9 *Hoary Edge 1 Dreamy Duskywing 40+ Juvenal's Duskywing 6 Wind Indigo Duskywing 2 *Indian Skipper 4 *Peck's Skipper 1 Hobomok Skipper 17 Common Roadside-Skipper 2 Zabulon Skipper 1
Click on any image below to enlarge.
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We are out here enjoying your weekend excursions vicariously. I look forward to hearing about your trips and seeing the lovely photos. It was indeed a beautiful weekend. Thanks, Matt!