The 2nd annual Blowing Rock butterfly count was held Saturday, June 30. We had 7 participants (Randy Emmitt, John Finnegan, Bruce Grimes, Clyde Kessler, Jim Nottke, Chris Wilson, and myself), divided into 3 parties. Had I known it was going to rain out the Blue Ridge Parkway folks by 12:30, I might have even split out more parties! We didn't get rain in the foothills until about 3 pm. Thus, we got short-changed a bit in hours of counting, but that is typical in the mountains -- you can't save good areas until the latter half of the afternoon.

Here is the list of 44 species, a decent total despite the weather and poor nectaring (lots of good flowers with no butterflies):

97 Pipevine Swallowtail
62 E. Tiger Swallowtail
2 Spicebush Swallowtail
44 Cabbage White
16 Clouded Sulphur
23 Orange Sulphur
2 Harvester
1 American Copper low; between broods?
1 Gray Hairstreak
31 Eastern Tailed-Blue
55 Summer Azure
4 Variegated Fritillary
10 Diana Fritillary
82 Great Spangled Fritillary
106 Aphrodite Fritillary
[101 Speyeria sp.]
27 Meadow Fritillary
1 Silvery Checkerspot
17 Pearl Crescent
7 Question Mark
10 Eastern Comma
[5 Polygonia sp.]
13 American Lady
2 Painted Lady
7 Red Admiral
1 Common Buckeye
4 Red-spotted Purple
2 Viceroy
4 Northern Pearly-eye
2 Carolina Satyr
2 Little Wood-Satyr
1 Common Wood-Nymph
1 Monarch + one caterpillar
357 Silver-spotted Skipper
1 HOARY EDGE
4 Northern Cloudywing
3 Dreamy Duskywing
2 Juvenal's Duskywing
4 Horace's Duskywing
1 ZARUCCO DUSKYWING
3 Wild Indigo Duskywing
2 Common Sootywing
1 Peck's Skipper
2 Northern Broken-Dash
4 Little Glassywing
5 Dun Skipper

The lack of hairstreaks was baffling; Bandeds are in the circle, but missed. The count is about 12 days earlier than last year's, so some differences are abviously due to being earlier, but I would have expected a good number of skippers in the meadows on red clover, on milkweeds, etc. The Hoary Edge and Zarucco Duskywing were seen in the lower portions of the count circle. Neither would be expected in the higher mountains. Finally, Harvesters were found on a count I went on! John F. and I had singles at two places on dirt roads, and one allowed us to poke it (they normally are very tame). We hit the tail end of the single flights of Dreamy and Juvenal's Duskywings. One of the Diana Fritillaries was a female! This seems quite early, as females normally aren't flying until mid-July, occasionally earlier. Of course, the males were generally fresh, as this is near the beginning of the brood

I have never seen so much common milkweed, butterflyweed, hydrangea, and red clover (the primary nectar sources) over the weekend go unused by butterflies. Neally ALL the butterflies I saw on the count were getting nutrients from dirt roads, the primary "nectar" source on the count. It takes a lot of driving and stopping, but all those dirt roads running down the escarpment are where one or two dozen species occur that are hard to find in the meadows and trails along the parkway.

With better weather next year, 50 species or more are easily possible. And, we need more butterflies, especially skippers!

Harry LeGrand
Raleigh, NC