New MDLepsOdes Listserv

Announcing MDLepsOdes, a new Google list for sightings and discussion of the field biology of butterflies and odonates.

Over the years, the butterfly and ode communities have grown closer in our joint interest in and mutual commitment to field and ecology work.  A great example is the very useful and active sister list to the north, PALepsOdes, after which MDLepsOdes is modeled.  What we find so useful about PALepsOdes is that it reaches both communities, butterfliers and ode specialists, for whom there is an increasing overlap of interest and field activity and whose field observations enrich our knowledge of both orders of insects.  The collegial and respectful discussions that inform PALepsOdes will be what we strive for here.

There are plenty of resources for butterfly gardening, rearing leps, and general educational information about insects, but this list is created especially for those of us who are interested in field work. We welcome pictures, but this isn’t primarily a site for sharing good photography unless it is part of a field work or sightings discussion.  We won’t be too picky about geographic limits of MDLepsOdes as long as the location is within a day trip’s distance for most Marylanders.

Most importantly, this isn’t a list to debate the politics of GMOs or restoration schemes or to entertain the flame wars that erupt from time to time on some of our other local lists.  Issues that touch on butterfly field research or observation — such as collecting and permit rules, access to study sites, etc. — will be welcome within reason.  As moderator, I won’t hesitate to pull the plug on posts or posters that wander repeatedly off topic or descend into the uncivil.

MDLepsOdes seeks to complement, not replace, the discussions at washbutterflies, VA-MD-DE-Bugs, and VaLeps.  Each of these lists has its focus, just as MDLepsOdes will.  If you want to follow sightings and field activities with a minimum of other distractions, this is the place the find them.

Other than that, MDLepsOdes works like all the other listservs at Google Groups:  You subscribe yourself, and if the time comes that you want to leave the list, you unsubscribe yourself.  There are also digest modes and vacation stops and other bells and whistles that are explained at the Google Groups site. To keep from being spammed, I will be approving all requests to join the list, so give me a day or so to do that.  If you have any problems, just drop me a note.

I want to drop a special invitation to the Maryland ode community — I for one would really like to see/hear about what’s being seen where.  And to those of you lep people who’ve dropped out of the other discussions, welcome back!

Special thanks to Tom Stock and Beth Johnson, who’ve provided encouragement and beta testing for the listserv to make signing up as easy as possible.  I’ll continue to rely on them to provide counsel as issues in list management come up.

We look forward to seeing you at MDLepsOdes, and please share this information freely!

To sign up, go to https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/mdlepsodes

 

Bountiful Brown Elfins in Frederick Watershed

Tom Stock, Beth Johnson and I returned to one of the powerlines along Gambrill Park Road in the Frederick Municipal Watershed Forest on Saturday, hoping to do better than I had done last week in the short period before Sunday’s showers rolled in.  We did not expect, however, to find Brown Elfins in the kind of abundance we did — while each of us had slightly different numbers, we each had 25 or more, a personal high count for this species at any one location for me.  They are clearly ovipositing on the abundant blueberry along the powerline trail, and are most often seen basking on the broad, dark green leaves of mountain laurel, from which the males dart out to harass passing females or male interlopers.

In addition to the Brown Elfins, Tom’s eagle eye spotted a Pine Elfin in the same location, nectaring on the same blueberry bushes.

Aside from elfins, we saw:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (11, all yellow form)

Cabbage White (1)

Orange Sulphur (1)

Spring Azure (2)

Eastern Tailed-blue (1)

White-M Hairstreak (6)

Juvenal’s Duskywing (14)

Horace’s Duskywing (1)

Dreamy Duskywing (6)

 

A Chilly Eastern Shore

I took off for the Eastern Shore yesterday, hoping to pick up Frosted Elfin on the colonies of lupine in The Nature Conservancy’s Nassawango Creek Preserve and environs.  I’d been there two weeks ago — the same time we had them last year in this location — and the buds were beginning to shoot up.  Given that lupine-feeding Frosted Elfins (there is an ecotype that feeds on wild indigo) feed on flower buds and developing seed capsules, I figured they would be in flight by now.  No such luck — it’s been very cool and windy on the Eastern Shore owing to the Atlantic high pressure system that’s been in place for what seems like weeks.

Even though the weather yesterday along the Nassawango was pretty much perfect for elfin watching, they appear not to have emerged yet.  The flower racemes were just beginning to flower — two or three open flowers at most on the most advanced stalks.  And no elfins.

Best sighting of the day was of Denise Gibbs, who also showed up to check out the same lupines, and sent me on a welcome but ultimately unsuccessful chase for a mystery snake along the Paul Leifer Trail.

 

Allegany Adventure

Tom Stock and I headed out to Allegany County today to visit a few sites for “must-have” early spring fliers for the MD100 project.  It was a superb day to be butterflying, and both of us boosted our annual total significantly!

A number of small whites are flying in Allegany at this season, most of which are the quite diminutive first spring brood of Cabbage White.  The challenge is differentiating these in flight from the past-peak flight of Falcate Orangetips and the always-hoped-for Olympia Marble.  We were delighted to see small but stable numbers of Olympia Marbles flying among the other two, but except for the one we photographed the other determinations were made almost all the time in the hand (or in the net, as it were).

Silvery Blue is flying now wherever there are substantial amounts of vetch in bloom, and that includes roadsides of Oldtown-Orleans Road and Piclic Road in Green Ridge State Forest.  The azure flight is about over:  We had two only Summer Azures during our field work today.

All the expected duskywings are flying, including super-abundant numbers of Juvenal’s Duskywing and smaller numbers of both Dreamy and Sleepy Duskywings.  Other skippers that surprised us today were Common Roadside Skipper (always a good find) and Northern Cloudywing (early for this species).  We dipped officially on one of the Green Ridge specialties, Cobweb Skipper, despite the fact that other folks had it in abundance were we were just last week.

Most expected swallowtails are out:  Eastern Tiger, Spicebush, Pipevine, Zebra, Black.  We did not not see Appalachian Tiger but expect it will emerge within the next week or two in Allegany.

Other notable butterflies to round out our 28-species day included Meadow Fritillary, Clouded Sulphur, Sleepy Orange, Henry’s Elfin, and American Copper.

And speaking of copper:  At one point scrambling up a shale scree back to the car I was about to grab a root to give me a boost up.  Good thing I took a closer look:  Not a root but a Copperhead.  Handsome snake, but clearly not enjoying my company.

Today added 7 new species to my MD100 count, bringing my total to 36 for the season.  Need to clean up all the other early single-brooded species, so the next couple of nice days will see me out trying to secure Frosted Elfin and West Virginia White, among others.

 

August: Sky Islands Butterfly Blitz

This notice comes to us by way of Mary Klinkel at SEABA:

Southeast AZ Butterfly Association (SEABA), a chapter of North American Butterfly Association (NABA), invites you to join us in August 2013 for a special Sky Islands Butterfly Blitz.
 
We will begin with the Ramsey Canyon Butterfly Count (compiler Doug Danforth) in the Huachuca Mountains on Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013 and conclude with the Patagonia, AZ Butterfly Count on Saturday, Aug. 10, 2013 (compiler Rich Bailowitz).  Butterfly count participants will pay the normal $3 fee collected by the compilers and sent to NABA.  There is no additional fee for the counts, but you will need to make your own arrangements for transportation, food and lodging.
 
Special field trips to Sky Island mountain ranges and US/MX borderlands will be offered each day in-between the butterfly counts.  Each day (Sunday 8/4/13 through Friday 8/9/13) will have at least one field trip to various locations in the Sky Islands bioregion of SE AZ.  Note:  All field trip locations are subject to change at the last minute due to weather, road and habitat conditions.  All field trip participants will be responsible for their own transportation, food, lodging and personal items.
 
Some of the possible locations to be visited on field trips include Chiricahua Mountains, Huachuca Mountains, Pinaleno Mountains, Coronado National Memorial, San Pedro River, Santa Rita Mountains, Baboquivari Mountains, Atascosa Mountains and Pajarito Mountains.  Note:  All field trip locations are subject to change at the last minute due to weather, road and habitat conditions.
 
You can sign up for any or all of the days we offer field trips.  There is a one-time, non-refundable registration fee and a daily field trip fee.  Please see the schedule below.  For local expert leaders that you may or may not have heard of, we will limit the number of participants to 15 per field trip and charge $10 per person per day.  For well-known butterfly experts we willl limit the number of participants to 10 per field trip and charge $30 per person per day.  All registrations will be taken as they are received.  You may reserve a spot and we will hold your place until April 30, 2013.  If your payment is not received by that date, we will release your spot to the next person on a wait list.
 
We may add more special field trips with well-known experts, and if so we will let you know as soon as possible.  Please reply to Mary Klinkel munchita@msn.com if you would like to participate in these spectacular field trips.
 
Registration:  $10 non-refundable per person if NABA member; $40 non-refundable per person if not NABA member, includes one-year membership in NABA
 
Field trip fees per day:  $10 per person for local expert leaders, max. 15 participants per field trip
 
National expert field trip leaders include Jim Brock and Rich Bailowitz.  Jim Brock will lead a field trip on Friday 8/9/13 and Rich Bailowitz will lead a field trip on a different day TBD (either Mon. 8/4, Tues. 8/5 or Thurs. 8/8).  For these field trips, fees are $30 per person per day and there is a maximum of 10 participants per field trip.
 
We look forward to many exciting discoveries with you in SEABA’s Sky Islands Butterfly Blitz!
 
Mary Klinkel, coordinator
munchita@msn.com

 

 

Spring Comes Slowly to the East Coast

Harry LeGrand, veteran lep guru and all-round naturalist from NC, posted to carolinaleps and NABA-chat recently just how far behind the East Coast is for the 2013 flight season:

Here in North Carolina, in a warm winter/spring like in 2012, serious butterflying can be underway by late February or early March. In a normal spring, things start popping here (5 or more species in a few hours) by mid-March. This year has seen a very cold period from mid-February to now, and it will continue into early April. Basically, spring hasn’t truly come to NC yet, and it is March 22!  The Northeast and Midwest keep getting pummeled by snow.

So, I was curious to see how butterfly records in NC this year , so far, compared to the quite early 2012.

2013 — Jan. 1 – Mar. 20 = 84 records in NC (reported by all folks on carolinaleps listserve)
2012 — Jan. 1 – Mar. 20 = 351 records.

So, this roughly means that there were 4.17 times as many butterflies flying last year than this year, as of this date! Alternatively, there have been 24% the number of butterfly records in 2013 than there were at this time last year.  No surprise to me!

If you have seen no butterflies yet, or just a couple, like me, you aren’t alone. I guess things are averaging maybe 10-14 days late this year — certainly at least a week late.

 

Canada Annexes the U.S.!

Well, not exactly.

Last year, many of us who observe or collect butterflies in the Canadian Provinces were delighted at the launch of eButterfly, a sort of complement to the very popular eBird application designed to make the data collected by citizen scientists accessible to our colleagues and to scientists everywhere.  This delight was tempered by frustration that the U.S. still has no such citizen science database management system for butterflies – NABA has limited utility for compiling personal data, but its quirkiness, frequent glitches, and lack of access to aggregated records have made it of very modest value.  In fact, many commercial listing software packages far outstrip the capacities of NABA’s BIS database for making sense even of personal observation data.

For Canadians, eButterfly also trumped BAMONA for ease of use and ability to manipulate data.

So it was with great anticipation that I read the news last month that eButterfly is now accepting current (and historical!) U.S. records.  They’re pretty sporadic so far, but eButterfly promises to be the true lep version of eBird in most of its essential data management tools.

Same as with eBird, you need to create a user ID to open an account.  After that, you can submit your own data, slice and dice those data a number of ways, and see what other users have submitted for your area or for areas you are planning to visit.  The data collection is especially rich for Canada and for the Northeast; I have no doubt that given a year or two and some dedicated efforts to populate eButterfly with historic observation and collection data it will be a very useful resource south of the Canadian border indeed!

Currently the system contains about 28,000 records for 334 species.

 

20th Approximation “Butterflies of North Carolina”

Harry LeGrand and Tom Howard have just brought out their 20th Approximation of the Butterflies of North Carolina — 10 days ahead of schedule, no less!  This “butterfly atlas” for the state is a huge undertaking, and the 2012 update has a lot of new information from last season. And many of the species accounts and other natural history notes make it a valuable reference for us in the mid-Atlanltic.  As Harry notes, “Last year (2012) saw far more records posted to the carolinaleps listserve
than ever before, yielding somewhere in the vicinity of about 12,000 new records!”

The 20th approximation contains:

1.      A new species account, White Checkered-Skipper
2.      Many, many new county records
3.      Many, many new earliest dates (2012 was a very warm spring, and
thus there were lots of early records)
 

 

Before the Storm

Popped out of a science writers conference in Raleigh NC this afternoon for a quick visit to the Raulston Arboretum.  It was very windy, completely clouded over, and quite chilly (low 60s) so I wasn’t expecting to see any butterflies.  But I was surprised by three:  a Monarch, a Common Checkered-skipper, and — a life lep for me — Brazilian Skipper.  The Brazilian Skipper was nectaring on pink morning glories (Ipomoea), still open at mid-afternoon because of the heavy cloud cover.

 

Mile High Butterflies — and Butterfliers

I spent a week in mid-August birding and botanizing in the Rockies and nearby Pawnee Grasslands; not such a good year or time of year for butterflies, but I still managed to pick up a few life leps. Birding was better, with some super looks at American Three-toed Woodpecker in Rocky Mountains National Park and Chestnut-collared and McCown’s Longspurs, Swainson’s Hawk and Lark Buntings in the grasslands.

But probably my best sighting was of Audubon Naturalist Society senior naturalist Stephanie Mason, who I ran into at the trailhead for the Cache la Poudre trail (about 10,000 feet just before timberline)  What were the chances?  At least I can assure the staff at ANS that she really was doing her volunteer work at RMNP and not engaged in a month of debauchery at Las Vegas!
She did point me to some nice leps she’d seen along the trail, including Purplish Fritillary, Purplish Copper, and Mead’s Sulphur.  Other lep highlights included Ruddy Copper and Field Crescent in the town of Estes Park, and Uncas Skipper in the Pawnee.