I spent the weekend at the Canaan Valley Birding Festival but managed to get out looking for butterflies one day in the northern valley portion of the Canaan Valley NWR and the Beall tract in the southern area. The highlight was a fresh Silver-bordered Fritillary which is a rare lep in our area favoring a wetter, wetland, sedge meadow type of evironment than Meadow Fritillary. Other notables included Harris’s Checkerspots, numerous Common Ringlets (now common in the higher elevations of WV), two American Coppers and a Pepper and Salt Skipper. Finally, on a birding sortie Sunday we found an Appalachian Azure.
* = FOY ** = Lifer Pipevine Swallowtail 1 Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail 5 Spicebush Swallowtail 1 Cabbage White 3 Orange Sulphur 2 American Copper 2 Azure Sp. 4 Appalachian Azure 1 Meadow Fritillary 7 **Silver-bordered Fritillary 1 *Harris's Checkerspot 2 Pearl Crescent 12 American Lady 1 Little Wood-Satyr 8 *Common Ringlet 30+ Juvenal's Duskywing 1 Silver-spotted Skipper 3 Hobomok Skipper 2 Pepper and Salt Skipper 1
Click on any image below to enlarge.
 |
 |