July 2019 Sightings

Leaderless Walk - 9 participants. Sunny and warm.

80° mix of sun and clouds. Strong winds of 20+ mph on the ridge made it difficult to find hairstreaks. I'm certain this is an under count.
The milkweed stands in the scout camp had almost no butterflies. The camp has a lot of milkweed and crown vetch. I saw only one Banded Hairstreak and it was on a sunny rock on Kaiser Rd.

10 M - 1:30 PM. 80 degrees, sunny. Wildlife Observation Center, areas near parking lots on Long Hill, Woodland, Old Meyersville Rds. Abundant Dogbane at the WOC; Mountain-mint and Buttonbush just starting. Comma had underwing mark suggestive of Question Mark but only on one side. Duskywings and Woodnymphs very fresh.

Obs. made from 7:30 till 11. Sunny & 65-80 degrees. Dogbane in bloom, Very little Common Milkweed, Butterfly weed starting to bloom. All Coral Hairstreaks found on butterfly weed as expected. Delaware Skippers were showing a strong preference for White Yarrow.

Low 80's, sunny, no wind.
Very few butterflies.
12:30-2:00pm

Obs. made from 12 noon till 4:20. Mostly Sunny 74-85 . Explored Canal Rd. from southern parking area to the northern parking area & fields at northern end. Also covered the AT from Rt 94 to the elevated footbridge along the boardwalk. Shocked to see so little Common milkweed in the fields adjacent to the AT. No Canada Thistle either. I believe that this is the fewest number of butterflies that I have encountered here when covering this much ground. Found the Black Dash in the overgrown sedge meadow near the RR tracks. Observed a pair of Northern Pearly-eyes in a dogfight for over seven min. They outlasted my patience for a photograph. Fun to watch their unique flight.

2:30-4pm
cloudy and humid, biting flies in wet area, 89f and rain approaching; button bush productive near the 20' container

Sunny, Low 80s, Little wind
2:00 - 3:15 PM
Am Coppers nectaring mostly on Yarrow

9:00am to 11:15am. A walk around the property to scout locations for the count on Saturday. Mostly cloudy, sunny at times, and humid. Did not spend as much time today in Woodpecker Swamp due to the non-butterfly bugs. Unided sulphurs and duskywings.

8:15am-1:45pm, sunny, 78-85˚F
No joy in finding Edwawrds' Hairstreak at this site this year.

9:35-10:55, sunny, 76-80º. Marsh and upland fields at intersection of Jager Road and Old Mine Road, Sandyston Twp. Thanks to the earlier posting from Steve Glynn mentioning Baltimore Checkerspot, we checked out this area that we usually don't visit this time of year, and were amply rewarded with a nice population at a new location for this declining species, as well as a few other goodies. One BC was seen in the upland field, all others were down in the dense Tussock Sedge marsh.

85˚F, sunny, 2:20pm-4:15pm

11:00-12:30, sunny, low 80s. From Jager Road north to north end of Minisink Island. We visited the Westbrook-Bell House site (0.9 mile N of Jager Rd.) and a field along an unnamed dirt road 0.4 mi N of Jager. The attached list is from this field and the road to it. We were surprised to find a nice colony of Am. Copper here, hard to find this year, and also surprised to see a Baltimore on the road there, pretty far from the Jager Road colony. We did not count the many butterflies on OMR and the road to the Westbrook-Bell House, but they included many E. Commas; a few Question Marks, Red Admirals, Tawny Emperors, and Am. Snouts; and one Hackberry Emperor.

3:30 to 5:30. Good to see Coral Hairstreaks back again. A number of Monarch caterpillars on Orange Milkweed. Orange Milkweed more plentiful this year.

Cloudy and warm.

1:40-3:00, bright overcast with peeks of sun, 82º. Southern end of utility line corridor through the preserve.

9:00am-2:00pm, 80-87˚F, mostly cloudy, brief torrential downpour midday. Photos by Mike Lee.

3:25-4:15pm, 80's, mostly cloudy. Photo by Mike Lee.

80's,, 2:15-3:15pm, mostly cloudy, Photo by Mike Lee.

Activity mostly at Wild Bergamot patch. Good bloom of milkweed attracting Monarchs and Tiger Swallowtail. 4:40-5:15 pm.

The Lord Stirling Park portion of the Great Swamp Count. Hot and humid for the entirety of the survey, but alternating sunny, cloudy, and raining. Survey time from 9am to 3:45pm with a brief break during a thunderstorm. A few notable observations highlighted by the emergence of the Black Dash and Mulberry Wing colony. No nectar sources yet in Woodpecker Swamp, so surveying the wetland skippers was difficult. Not too many nectar sources in the meadows either at the moment, so no hairstreaks and skippers were hard to come by. All counts are exact. All in all, it felt like a pretty active day with quite a few butterflies flying.

3-5pm. failed at finding a checker spot. emperor would not get off me. (Eastern tiger was huge… do we have Appalachians?)

First American Snout in my garden, at least that I have seen. Many eggs laid on Common Hackberry.

8:45-12:45, sunny, 70s-80s. Our territory on the Wallkill River NWR Count: North and South Loops of Dagmar Dale Trail, plus boat launch area on CR 565. Also had 2 white-form sulphurs and 1 anglewing sp.

Observations from ~2:00 on. Sunny, mid-80s. A little more variety showing up, but numbers and diversity of butterflies -and other insects - well below normal.