Folks:
I believe a total of 11 people participated on the May 9-10 Carolina
Butterfly Society foray to the northern half of Haywood County. As
Sunday the 11th was a cloudy, cool, and occasionally wet morning, the
foray ended on May 10. The weather for both May 9-10 was good to
excellent for butterflying -- partly cloudy to mostly sunny, and temps
reaching into the 70s.
May 9: We covered the length of Harmon Den Road, from I-40 to Max Patch,
starting at noon. As it had rained overnight and early a.m., the dirt
road was damp and had hundreds and hundreds of butterflies! It was hard
not to run over Pipevine Swallowtails! Even so, we couldn't really
muster up a truly red-letter find.
May 10: Three of us covered Purchase Knob, a new acquisition of the
National Park Service as an addition to Great Smoky Mountains NP, and
dirt roads west of I-40 south of Waterville. The other group of 6-7
covered the Cataloochee Valley portion of the eastern end of GSMNP. The
latter group had well over a thousand butterflies, whereas the first
group had much fewer, as Purchase Knob is still a tad "wintry" on May
10. And, again, we failed to find a red-letter find.
We tallied up the results at the Super 8 Motel in Waynesville each
evening. Here are the totals for each of the two days -- May 9 and May
10. The two lists of May 10 are combined.
Pipevine Swallowtail 1000, 2528 yes, that's over 3500 for the two
days!
Black Swallowtail -, 1
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail 210, 485
Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail 40, 9
Spicebush Swallowtail 20, 6
West Virginia White 10, 14
Cabbage White -, 2
Falcate Orangetip -, 2
Clouded Sulphur -, 1
Orange Sulphur 5, 17
Cloudless Sulphur 3, 3
American Copper -, 11
Red-banded Hairstreak 2, 4
Eastern Tailed-Blue 10, 3
Spring Azure 2, 7 very worn
Summer Azure 2, -
Appalachian Azure 8, 1
AMERICAN SNOUT 1, - scarce in the mountains; probably a migrant
GULF FRITILLARY 1, - very early; migrant
Variegated Fritillary -, 9
Meadow Fritillary 2, 3
Pearl Crescent 85, 110
Mimic Crescent -, 4 new to county
Question Mark 3, 1
Eastern Comma -, 1
Mourning Cloak -, 1
American Lady -, 1
Red Admiral 1, 7
Common Buckeye 1, 18
Monarch 1, 1
Silver-spotted Skipper 80, 26
Dreamy Duskywing 120, 101
Sleepy Duskywing 3, 8
Juvenal's Duskywing 100, 107
Horace's Duskywing -, 1
Wild Indigo Duskywing 1, -
Clouded Skipper -, 1
Sachem 1, 8
Zabulon Skipper 3, 3
Pepper and Salt Skipper 1, -
COMMON ROADSIDE-SKIPPER 1, - new to county
Total -- 41 species
Everyone had a great time, seeing a lot more butterflies than we ever
thought we'd see.
Harry LeGrand
Raleigh
Return to Carolina
Butterfly Society Home Page