The Triad Chapter of the Carolina Butterfly Society held a butterfly walk and caterpillar talk on Saturday, June 14, 2014, at Haw River State Park on the Guilford/Rockingham County line in North Carolina.

We met at 9:00 am during an unusual weather day for mid June in that it was sunny but the temperature at the nearby airport was only 68 degrees. Dew was still on the leaves when we set out. As people have been reporting all season, we have had a low number of butterflies throughout the eastern part of North Carolina from about Guilford County east, so combined with the cool morning, it was somewhat remarkable that we saw 13 species of butterflies in about a two hour period. All but four were single individuals, and the rest were two each. The list is below.

Following the walk, Jim Nottke, assisted by Charlie Cameron and Gene Schepker, conducted a talk and demonstration with live butterfly caterpillars that they had brought from home where they are rearing them. This was of particular interest to the children attending, although all of us learned a lot from the experience.

This event was open to the public as part of the NC State Parks “Year of the Lepidoptera” activities. Nothing is planned yet, but we talked with the park staff about doing something similar at a later date in late summer or next spring.

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Below is the list of butterflies seen on this trip. All were in the Rockingham County portion of the park near the Haw River in a natural gas line right-of-way, and around the lake.

Zebra Swallowtail 1
Spicebush Swallowtail 2
Cabbage White 2
Eastern Tailed-Blue 1
Summer? Azure 2
Gray Hairstreak 1
Pearl Crescent 1
Great Spangled Fritillary 1
Silver-spotted Skipper 2
Southern Cloudywing 1
Southern Broken-Dash 1
Delaware Skipper 1
Zabulon Skipper 1

Dennis
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Dennis E. Burnette
Greensboro, NC 27410
deburnette@triad.rr.com