Found my first Indian Skippers of the season on the ridge in Sleepy Creek WMA. A couple of tattered Juvenal’s Duskywings, Common Roadside-Skipper and Eastern Tailed-Blue. There also may be some Appalachian Tiger Swallowtails but none of the large Tiger ST’s that I’ve seen on the ridge line have landed for futher investigation. The Indian Skipper below is nectaring on Maiden Pink (Dianthus deltoides). These are the first Indian Skippers I’ve seen in Berkeley County.
Mike Smith, Barry Marts and I were glad to head out of the never ending cycle of clouds, rain, wind and cool tempertures during the last three weeks. We took a field trip north (to warmer temps) looking for a couple of rarities in NY and MA respectively. The Karner Blue (Lycaeides melissa samuelis) is an endangered subspecies (some may consider it a distinct species) of the more common Melissa Blue butterfly which is found in the western states. Karner Blue is named from the location where it was first described near Albany, NY. We headed to the Albany Pine Bush where it’s exclusive host, Wild Lupine (Lupinus perrennis) is found in decent supply. The weather during our late afternoon search offered the best conditions of the entire trip with temps near 80 and partly sunny skies. We found several males and one female. Next, it was off to Massachusetts to search for the rarest Elfin in the eastern U.S. The Bog Elfin is found in Black Spruce bogs. Massachusetts has the southern-most known locations for the species in North America. This is our smallest Elfin, noticabily smaller than the similar looking Eastern and Western Pine Elfins. Barry and I had dipped on Bog Elfin last year so the find was especially satisfying. On the trip we were also treated to Henry’s and Frosted Elfin. Other butterfly notables were American Copper and Mustard White. From a birding perspective we came across 14 species of warblers. Then it was back to West Virginia and guess what? Rain!
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The Sun has only been out 4 days out of the last 22. Shadow and I ventured to nearby Sleepy Creek WMA and some butterflies were on the wing. Some leftover female Juvenal’s Duskywings, several Dreamy Duskywings, American Lady, Mourning Cloak, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and first of year Common Roadside-Skipper and Northern Cloudywing. I know lots of spring rain will mitigate the intensity of a summer drought but we need a break and so do the butterflies.
In other news I participated in a WV birding Big Day on May the 7th and during that trip added two new butterflies to my state list: Carolina Satyr (Wayne County) and Checkered White (RCB Locks & Dam).
Another trip to North Carolina netted a couple more lifers for Barry, Annette Allor and yours truly. We spent a wonderful weekend in the western part of the state namely Buncombe and Graham counties. The search for a Dusky Azure (C. niger) began much closer to home in MD and WV a couple of years ago but no reports of it were to be found and we looked more than once in possible places where the hostplant had been reported in the past. The host plant for Dusky Azure is (Aruncus dioicus), Goatsbeard. This apparently used to be more common in our area but possible over grazing by the deer population has not helped at all. It appears that this butterfly’s population has contracted into the southern Appalachians. We were successful finding 10-12 Dusky’s in a six hour search. The next day found us looking for one of the smaller duskywing species in the region, Mottled Duskywing (averaging the same size or a touch larger than Dreamy Duskywing). Other FOY’s on the trip for me were Red-banded and Gray Hairstreaks, Silvery Blue, Sachem and West Virginia White. I personally love going to the mountain areas for any reason; hiking, birds, etc. so this was a special trip with good company and decent weather.
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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.
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