Recent sightings

3 to 5 pm. 80 degrees and sunny. Lots of dogbane and common milkweed in bloom.

45º overnight, but turned into a beautiful day with high temp near 80. "Our" Banded Hairstreaks emerged today, nectaring on the Common Milkweeds in the front lawn and displaying in late afternoon on the Sassafras tree in the backyard, just as many previous generations have done.

1:45-2:40, sunny, 79º. White's Pond portion of Sussex Branch Trail. also saw a Water Snake eating a fish, found New Jersey Tea in flower, and Wade called up a Virginia Rail.

8 AM - noon, Clouds then sun, not warm enough for butterflies until around 10 AM. Loads of Dogbane at the WOC but only the single fritillary.

Just as last year, large numbers of Great Spangled Fritillaries were present at the Cherry Street unit of the park.

1:30 to 3:15. Mostly sunny; temps ca. 70°. Winds somewhat less than AM. Seven observers. In addition to the species on the list, an anglewing was seen, but not identified to species.

315-410pm

150-300pm
lots of bottle brush

finished at 145pm

1 pm to 2:30 pm. lows 70s and windy. casual butterflying while hiking up to Oslo Rock on blue trail and back to Glenwild Avenue on red trail.

Good Weather
Also Seen, 1 Lady Sp.

a 5pm circumlocution… hot… 90 something. clovers, milk weeds, yarrows blooming. Not much in the way of butterflies but did finally get 1 hairstreak on milkweed.

1 - 3 PM, sun, windy, 87 F. Butterflies continue sparse here, maybe too windy for much activity. Common and Swamp milkweed blooming, also some Dogbane. Spotted Lanternfly nymphs on a number of milkweed plants; crushed as many as I could. Could find none on Dogbane or other plants.

wooded ridge trail with a brook at the bottom- belongs to FOHVOS. about 3 miles- 10-11:30 a.m., a warm day but possibly more would be hatching later.

on vetch; sides of new open culvert planted by federal govt… watching what actually grows here- some budding common milkweed has sprung up

4:15-5:00, partly sunny and about 80º.
Although or visit was late in the day, these are pretty abysmal numbers for mid-June at what was formerly one of the best butterflying spots in our area. The dearth of grass-skippers continues, which we believe is largely attributable to the rapid expansion of various species of forbs (most, but not all, non-native species ) at the expense of warm-season, native species of grasses that are the hosts for most species of grass-skippers. We have noted with considerable alarm the incredible spread of plants like Wild Madder bedstraw (and at White Lake, Yellow Bedstraw) and hop-clovers, and even native goldenrods like Solidago rugosa. Good nectar plants such as milkweeds and dogbanes remain common but the native grasses are disappearing from many sites.
We were pleased to see a Black Racer, which seems to be much less common than Black Rat Snake in recent years.

1:15 to 3 pm. 85 deg. and sunny. My usual route from parking lot up wooded trail parallel to main gas line right of way to fen boardwalk then back on main right of way. Good amounts of Dogbane and Common Milkweed in bloom. No Monarch butterflies, but one caterpillar on milkweed. 4 foot long Black Rat snake.

4:00-4:30, sunny, 85

5:40-7:40 mostly sunny and hot. Europeans skippers were prevalent amid the Timothy Grass and Hairy Vetch patches - most I saw at once was 6 individuals. A couple of pairs attempted to mate including the pair pictured.

11:00 to 2:45. Mostly sunny; temps in upper 70s. The Commas, A. Lady, & Glassywing were really fresh.

4:10-6:15 warm and mostly sunny - I checked areas near both park entrances. This was my high count of European skippers at this park and there were likely many more as I only checked trail edges. (I didn't see any European skippers last time at the location June 9th.)

12:00 to 2:00. Mostly sunny; temps in 80s.

2:10-3:10, 80º, partly sunny. Both Coppers were males; images are of the same individual. Encouraging to see 7 Fritillaries after the last couple of abysmal years.