One of the coolest butterflies I’ve encountered thus far in my young lep career has been the Yucca Giant-Skipper. This early spring species is getting harder to find according to correspondence with lepsters in North Carolina with many years under their belts. Barry Marts and I made the trip down to the Sandhills region which takes in Moore, Hoke, Richmond and Scotland counties. You can drive for miles in the sandy Longleaf Pine lands of the North Carolina Sandhills Game Lands. About 60,000 acres in all. The roads are mostly sand, sometimes gravel. I wouldn’t want to drive through it in wet weather and definitely would recommend AWD or 4WD. For our trip the weekend was nice with Saturday being the coolest (temps). Sunday was perfect. In addition to the Yucca Giant-Skipper I saw FOY Eastern Tailed-Blue, Pearl Crescent, Palamedes Swallowtail, Hoary Edge, Common Buckeye, Southern and Northern Cloudywing, Southern Pearly-eye, Variegated Fritillary, Holly Azure (C. idella), Carolina Roadside-Skipper and Reversed Roadside-Skipper.
Click on any image below to enlarge
 |
 |
 |
 |