Cait Coberly studying a female Stream Cruiser
near the Emmitt Estate.

Folks,

Well our first trip of the season was a smashing success! The weather man called for good weather Friday morning and changed up Friday night predicting rain all day. Well he messed up as usual and scared off a few folks, and the weather turned from poor to good by mid morning and it even got sunny in mid day and we never saw a drop of rain. Given the forecast we lost all the out of towners that were coming on the trip. But we managed to have 14 people show up from the Durham area! Four people were members of the CBS, five were members of the Duke Natural History Group (actually nine altogether as some of us belong to both the CBS and DNHG) and five people were guests. I counted 7 people with cameras semingly a big a change of format this year as only one person had a film camera the rest of us had digital cameras.

We started off at my estate by wondering down into the back 2 acres of woods and found large numbers of Trout Lilies, Rue Anemone, Pennywort, May Apples and a few Bloodroot still in bloom to name a few anyway. We heard a calling Barred Owl, a first of the season Louisiana Waterthrush, and large numbers of Gold Finches.


Cait, Leslie, Jeannie, Ken and Jeff studying a plant.

We then headed up to the top of my road following several Six-spotted Tiger Beetles to find my first Pipevine Swallowtail of the season fly by and Sleepy Duskywings and 3 Henry`s Elfins in courtship flight. Redbuds were the main nectar source for butterflies. It was called to my attention there was an Osprey flying over head and I believe this might have been bird number 109 in my neighborhood, we also heard a Brown-headed Cowbird calling.

Next we checked my neighbors old garden plot for dragonflies we weren`t disappointed either! A female Stream Cruiser then another both posed for close up photos! Next a couple of Common Baskettails and a Uhler`s Sundragon that posed for all the cameras. I found a mated pair of azures that we believed they could have been Summer Spring Azures.

Most of us then headed out to Oconeechee State Preserve and we ate lunch while enjoying the larger pond. Common Green Darners were entertaining us on the water as we ate. We saw an azure likely a Summer Spring Azure attempting to lay an egg on Wild Cherry, but my moving in closer to watch scared it off the cherry, a Edwards Azure would have been laying eggs on Flowering Dogwood I believe. We then walked up to the Brown Elfin Trail and were rewarded with 6 Brown Elfins which I believe we all took photos of. We didn`t get to see and courtship flights like in years past, but still they were a fun find. While on the knob we saw both a male and female Black Swallowtail and a Pipevine Swallowtail. Service Berry was in bloom several places near the top of the Brown Elfin Knob.

Part of the crowd parted ways and headed back home and the remaining five of us walked down to the power line cut and found these new dragonflies Twin-spotted Spiketail, Selys` Sundragon and a Common Whitetail. We found these mystery bugs all over the broom sedge? under the power line. Falcate Orangetips, Spring Azures and Juvenal`s Duskywings were plentiful along the power line. We also found large numbers of a mystery bug on a species of tall grass under the power line.

Once we got back to the parking lot we thought we`d give the red buds a look for Henry`s Elfins but missed out on them but we got a nice early bonus Eastern Tailed-blue.

Here`s the Orange County, NC list first numbers were in my neighborhood and the second numbers from Occoneechee State Preserve.

Pipevine Swallowtail (1) (2)
Black Swallowtail (1) (2) m/f
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (8) (8)
Cabbage White (0) (1)
Falcate Orangetip (6) (20)
Orange Sulphur (1) (2)
Sleepy Orange (0) (1)
Brown Elfin (0) (6)
Henry`s Elfin (5) (0)
Eastern-tailed Blue (0) (1)
Spring Azure (8) (18)
Summer Azure (2) (1) ???
Eastern Comma (0) (1)
Mourning Cloak (1) (3)
Sleepy Duskywing (2) (0)
Juvenal`s Duskywing (25+) (40+)

Dragonflies were:

Anax junius, Common Green Darner (0) (3)
Basiaeschna janata, Springtime Darner (1) (0)
Cordulegaster maculata, Twin-spotted Spiketail (0)(1)
Didymops transversa, Stream Cruiser (3) (0)
Epitheca cynosura, Common Baskettail (4) (5)
Helocordulia selysii, Selys' Sundragon (0) (1)
Helocordulia uhleri, Uhler's Sundragon (1) (0)
Libellula deplanata, Blue Corporal (12) (15)
Libellula lydia, Common Whitetail (0) (1)

Herps found were:

Box Turtle
Spring Peeper
Northern Cricket Frogs
"Lead-backed" Salamander (redless color morph of Red-backed)
Two-striped or Three-striped Salamander, we're still debating

Will Cook photographing a Northern Cricket Frog
along a creek at the Emmitt Estate.