On Saturday, Aug. 1, 2009, five members of the Triad Chapter of the Carolina
Butterfly Society ventured into Rockingham County, NC, to look for
butterflies on an impromptu foray. most of us had not looked for butterflies
in the county, which was the reason for this familiarization trip. The
weather was a bit uncomfortable: mostly cloudy changing to partly sunny,
high
temperature 90°, maximum humidity 93%; no precipitation.
Butterflies were
scarce. We had to work for most of the ones we saw. We saw
only 33
butterflies of 13 species. However, the places we scouted look like
they have
potential for the future, and we missed stopping at one spot we
want to
explore later.
We spent about an hour and a half at Lake Reidsville Park
where all of the
visible grassy areas recently had been mowed entirely too
short. There are
some large open fields edged by woods that could be
productive if the grass
were allowed to grow. The only place where we saw
butterflies was around the
lake between the boat launch area and the
western-most fishing pier. The
primary nectar flower was Swamp Milkweed on
which we watched one of the four
Monarchs laying eggs. Pickeral weed and a
few remaining button bush flowers
were along the shore but had few or no
butterflies. We did get long and
satisfying looks at an Eastern Tiger
Swallowtail and a Pipevine Swallowtail
taking nutrients from the wet sand at
the lake edge. We saw 18 butterflies
of 7 species here, which are listed
below. Dragonfly species at Lake
Reidsville Park included Widow Skimmer,
Eastern Pondhawk, Blue Dasher, Slaty
Skimmer, Halloween Pennant, and Black
Saddlebags.
After lunch at a famous local barbeque restaurant in
Reidsville, we went to
Betsy-Jeff Penn 4-H Center. It took a little while to
find the appropriate
person to obtain permission to enter the property, but
then we looked for
butterflies for about 2 hours. We stuck mostly to the
lakeshore and the road
edge because it was incredibly hot and humid by then.
Few butterflies were
visible in areas that should have had them; most of the
ones we saw were
perched or flying low within the woodland edge. Our efforts
produced 15
butterflies of 9 species, which are listed below. Dragonfly
species at the
4-H Center included Black Saddlebags, Eastern Amberwing, Slaty
Skimmer,
Widow Skimmer, Blue Dasher, Eastern Pondhawk, Halloween Pennant, and
Twelve-spotted Skimmer.
Because there have been few observations of
butterflies reported for
Rockingham County, two species we saw seem to be
first county records:
Pipevine Swallowtail and Northern Cloudywing. Below is
our butterfly list
for Rockingham County. The first number is for Lake
Reidsville Park; the
second number is at Betsy-Jeff Penn 4-H Center.
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail 1; 2
Pipevine Swallowtail 1; 0
Sleepy Orange 0;
1
Eastern Tailed-blue 1; 0
Summer Azure 0; 3
Pearl Crescent 8; 0
Red
Admiral 0; 1
Northern Pearly-eye 0; 1
Carolina Satyr 0; 2
Unidentified
satyr species 0; 3
Monarch 4; 0
Silver-spotted Skipper 2; 1
Northern
Cloudywing 1; 0
Little Glassywing Skipper 0; 1
--
Dennis Burnette
Greensboro, NC
Guilford County
deburnette@triad.rr.com
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