We just wrapped up the 2022 NABA annual count for Green Ridge State Forest this past weekend; after a soggy cold front washed out our original date of July 9 we were very happy with a glorious Sunday in the field. The special focus of the this count is always the health and status of one of the country’s more robust populations of Northern Metalmarks, Calephelis borealis, which for us is a shale barren specialist with a very restricted host plan (round-leaved ragwort, also a shale barren obligate).
Preliminary numbers suggest we surpassed our previous high count, 201, by about 10 more — and added a couple more locations where this butterfly holds out in Green Ridge. They are generally a butterfly adapted to flat flowers, especially woodland sunflowers, but we also observed them on oxeye daisy, early goldenrod, orange butterflyweed, and a mountain mint (although in the latter case they may have just been perched, not nectaring — it doesn’t fit the “expected” flower form.
LepLog 