Folks:

The Wilmington count was run under the narrowest of conditions -- moving the date ahead of schedule by a week, which hurt participation. Plus, jungle-like humidity and threat of rain (which stayed away). Derb Carter could only cover Figure Eight Island, so I had to cover the remainder of the circle. Add to this, the US Army Corps of Engineers is raising the dikes at Eagle Island so they can hold more spoil material (presumably); the dikes are now 95% bare of vegetation. The only positive of this was that the gate was open and a foreman told me that I could drive in to get to the remaining vegetation on the dike. This saved much time, and I was not about to walk a mile to reach this! I've never really had butterflies on a Polygonum (smartweed) before, but the P. pennsylvanicum (white form) on the dike had lots of bugs of all kinds.

I then covered RR tracks and a nursery, a boat ramp, and a powerline. However, by midday it was brutal, and strong SW winds ruined the powerline. I struggled to get to 33 species, and Derb added 8 more to the total, for a passable 41 species. There just are not many migrants around this year, though we got most of the ones expected (but no Eufala, Little Yellow, etc.).

Here are the totals:

3 Black Swallowtail
3 Giant Swallowtail
3 E. Tiger Swallowtail
1 Spicebush Swallowtail
18 Palamedes Swallowtail
3 Cabbage White
1 Orange Sulphur
19 Cloudless Sulphur
8 Sleepy Orange
2 Great Purple Hairstreak including one on the Polygonum on the dike!
5 Red-banded Hairstreak
3 Gray Hairstreak but no blues/azures
3 Gulf Fritillary low
5 Variegated Fritillary
28 Pearl Crescent
2 American Lady
33 Painted Lady nice total
3 Red Admiral
3 Common Buckeye ridiculously low
2 Red-spotted Purple
4 Viceroy
1 Carolina Satyr
7 Monarch
8 Silver-spotted Skipper
1 Long-tailed Skipper
3 Horace's Duskywing
7 Zarucco Duskywing
4 Common Checkered-Skipper
15 Least Skipper
5 Southern Skipperling
35 Clouded Skipper
18 Fiery Skipper
4 Whirlabout
4 Southern Broken-Dash
4 Delaware Skipper
1 Rare Skipper
18 Broad-winged Skipper
1 Dukes' Skipper
1 Dun Skipper
2 Ocola Skipper
210 Salt Marsh Skipper

Harry LeGrand
harry.legrand@ncmail.net