West Virginia Butterflies

Barry and I traveled to New Jersey in search of a few lifers. We wanted to see them before it was too late in the season. We had already tried two times on Maryland’s eastern shore for Rare Skipper so it was now New Jersey’s turn where more were being reported from multiple places. But first, we opted for a chance at Checkered White which had been reported in a field just west of Millville, NJ. We arrived at 9:00 and not too much was on the wing except for a few sulphurs. The field had recently been 90% plowed but hopefully there were still some Checkered Whites on the margin. We walked the roadside for over an hour and as it warmed up more leps were starting to fly. Many Cabbage Whites were seen and all were checked. We had been told that Checkered White on the wing looked a little “gray’ish” or “diry” as compared to Cabbage White and this tip proved to be helpful as I finally spotted a dirty looking white which turned out to be a female Checkered. Another 30 minutes of searching turned up a male Checkered. Yea! It was at this point that my camera had a glitch (unknown to me at the time) and no further images were recorded the rest of the day…yikes!). We next headed to a location known to have Mulberry Wing. This beautiful skipper’s VHW (Ventral Hind Wing) when fresh shows a pattern that looks like an airplane. It was cloudy now so the numbers of butterflies was down but we managed to see four Mulberry Wings, a Dun Skipper and a Dion Skipper which at a distance looks like a Delware Skipper save for the “ray” in the middle of it’s VHW and perhaps one at the lower VHW. Our last stop was at Eldora Nature Preserve and we didn’t have to go any further than the Butterfly Bush in the parking lot to see it covered with 30+ Broad-winged Skippers and our third target, Rare Skipper. Rare Skipper is larger than typical grass skippers and has a more muted orange ground coloration than Delaware or Dion to my eye. We saw seven of these. We headed home early to beat the I-95 traffic around Wilmington and Baltimore. It was a wise decision.
Click on any image below to enlarge.