Folks,
Based on the comments of Parker Backstrom and Harry LeGrand, many of you
carolinaleps readers, perhaps ALL OF YOU, have been checking your email
hourly, awaiting the results of the first annual Surry County Count. I
wish Parker and Holly had been there - we could have used that Dusted
Skipper!
But the 8 of us (Bob/Nancy Baldwin, Dennis/Lynn Burnette, Tom Krakauer,
Charlie Cameron, Elizabeth Riggs, & I) had a great day of butterflying -
temps from 58 to 82 degrees, clear skies, light breeze. We started at
Horne Creek Farm since it is the most open site, then on to the horse
trailer parking area for the Pilot Mountain Trailway, then the River
Section of Pilot Mtn St Park, the Mountain Section of the park, and finally
Foothills Nursery in White Plains. As Harry anticipated, the River
Section, with its 3 shallow fords and the riverbank, had the most
butterflies in this droughty weather. And as Parker mentioned, the parking
lot atop Pilot Mtn was full - I don't think I will go again on a weekend.
We came across a dirtbank full of solitary ground bees, hundreds of them,
across from the horse trailer area. Also a turkey on the railroad tracks
of the River Section, and one of our team was noted sitting on a RR tie
end, with the tail of a Copperhead hanging out from the adjacent RR tie.
And we saw a lot of butterflies;
===================================
2 Pipevine Swallowtail
2 Black Swallowtail
99 Eastern Tiger Swallowtail also 1 egg on Tulip Poplar
11 Spicebush Swallowtail also 1 caterpillar on Spicebush
10 Cabbage White
7 Clouded Sulphur
13 Orange Sulphur
6 Cloudless Sulphur
4 Sleepy Orange
1 Gray Hairstreak
9 Eastern-Tailed Blue
87 Azure
4 Variegated Fritillary
6 Great Spangled Fritillary
1 Meadow Fritillary **
5 Silvery Checkerspot
12 Pearl Crescent
4 Red Admiral
6 American Lady
1 Common Buckeye
4 Red-Spotted Purple
2 Southern Pearly Eye **
1 Northern Pearly Eye **
31 Carolina Satyr
3 Little Wood Satyr
1 Common Wood Nymph
3 Monarch also 2 eggs on Common Milkweed
17 Silver-Spotted Skipper
1 Southern Cloudywing **
6 Northern Cloudywing **
6 Clouded Skipper
4 Least Skipper
1 Tawny-Edged Skipper **
1 Whirlabout **
2 Little Glassywing **
5 Sachem
4 Zabulon Skipper **
1 Lace-Winged Roadside Skipper **
** - new county record [with only 53 species previously reported for Surry
County, we expected to add a few]
383 Adult butterflies
38 Species
1 Eastern Tiger Swallowtail egg
1 Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar
2 Monarch eggs
Jim Nottke
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