Barry Marts and I had a great weekend of butterflies in three MD counties. We tallied over 40 species for the weekend. On Saturday we went to Friendship Farm Park and Purse State Park in Charles county. We met up with fellow lep enthusiast’s Rick Borchelt, Beth Johnson and Tom Stock. We searched together as a group in Friendship Farms for several hours and then Barry and I headed off to Purse State Park in search of Carolina Satyrs. We came up empty on the Carolinas and in hindsight should have stayed at Friendships Farms with Rick and Beth (Tom had left in the earlier in the afternoon) has they saw several Carolina Satyrs and a Checkered White. Notables for us on Saturday were Banded Hairstreak, Gray Hairstreak, Tawny Emperor, and a lifer Dion Skipper.
On Sunday we headed west with a brief stop at Green Ridge State Forest. It was very quiet save for a few Red-spotted Purples and a couple of Banded Hairstreaks circling and landing at the top of an Oak tree. Next, we headed out to Finzel Swamp which straddles Allegany and Garrett counties. We were hoping for Appalachian Brown, Harris’s Checkerspot, Baltimore Checkerspot, Silver-bordered Fritillary and Long Dash. Out of those five we only found Harris’s Checkerspot and Long Dash but added a super bonus when we ran into Annette Allor (which BTW has a super butterfly photo gallery… The link to her site is: Maryland Butterflies). She had located a rare Harvester which provided excellent looks. After leaving Finzel we met up with Fran Pope who gave us a tour of the Big Run State Park area. There we found three lifer Gray Commas and a FOY Horace’s Duskywing. All of the Gray Commas were showing signs of wear. Hopefully the second flight will be along very shortly. All in all a fantastic weekend with stunning weather shared with butterfy friends. Doesn’t get much better.
* = FOY ** = Lifer Zebra Swallowtail Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail Spicebush Swallowtail Cabbage White Clouded Sulphur Orange Sulphur Harvester Banded Hairstreak Gray Hairstreak Eastern Tailed-Blue Summer Azure American Snout Great Spangled Fritillary Silvery Checkerspot Harris's Checkerspot Pearl Crescent Eastern Comma **Gray Comma American Lady Painted Lady Red-spotted Purple *Tawny Emperor Northern Pearly-eye Little Wood-Satyr Silver-spotted Skipper Northern Cloudywing Dreamy Duskywing *Horace's Duskywing Least Skipper European Skipper Peck's Skipper Tawny-edged Skipper Crossline Skipper *Long Dash Little Glassywing Sachem Hobomok Skipper Zabulon Skipper **Dion Skipper Dun Skipper
Click on any image below to enlarge.
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