Help Needed - East Haddam Butterfly Count, July 7th

Clay Taylor ctaylor at att.net
Sat Jun 30 17:20:45 EDT 2007


Hi all - 

I got so fired up yesterday at Machimoodus, seeing all those Baltimores and that big new milkweed patch, I have decided to resurrect the East Haddam Butterfly Count for 2007.   The past few years my travel schedule killed my ability to get my three counts (Shoreline, East Haddam, and New London) scheduled, but I will be available on the 7th (and only the 7th).

Wanna come play?    If you haven't done a butterfly count, they are just like the Christmas Bird Count - we count as many individual butterflies as possible within a 15-mile diameter circle in a single day.     The fun part is seeing how many species are tallied, and whether your group can get an "only" species for the list.      Foe every person that helps count. i'll pay the $3 to NABA so that we all get credit in the compilation book.

In the past, we always started at Haddam Meadows SP at 8am, walked the entire maedows, and then went on to visit other areas, while some groups met and covered other parts of the count circle.     This year, I want to start at Machimoodus SP at 8:30am, do a group stomp to see if we can tally 500+ Baltimores, and then we can go to different areas. 

If you can only invest an hour or two in the field, I would greatly appreciate it if you could thoroughly cover one or two designated spots, so the bigger group doesn't have to.     Here are the locations that have been done within the circle in the past - you can get a feel for the circle placement by looking at these locations on a map -
Note - * indicates a place that is really important to cover
The Airline Trail hike / bike railway from East Hampton to rt 149 in Colchester / Westchester
Day Pond SP, Colchester
*Cranberry Pond (skating rink) East Hampton
Salmon River State Forest / Comstock Covered Bridge
Hurd State Park
*George Dudley Seymour SP
Haddam Neck
Colchester Center area
*Babcock Pond WMA, Colchester
Moodus Reservoir and environs
*Wapowog WMA, East Hampton
Cockaponset State Forest east of Rt 9
*Haddam Meadows SP
*Machimoodus SP, Moodus
*Mt Parnassus Skating Rink, East Haddam
*Brainerd Homestead SP, East Haddam
Harlo Haagonsen Preserve, East Haddam
Devil's Hopyard SP, East Haddam
*Salem 4-corners, including Walden Preserve
*Rt 11 road cut, Salem
Mitchell Pond, salem
Chester Ferry area, Chester, including the RR tracks
Gillette's Castle SP, East Haddam
*Burnham Brook, East Haddam
*Pleasant Valley Preserve, Lyme
plus any powerlines, fields, and places you think you can find butterflies.   

If you think you can make it to a place, please let me know.  If you are unsure of your ability to identify everything you see, I'll coordinate with other participants to make sure you can hook up with some experienced butterflyers.   We typically get between 40 and 50 species - you never know!

Bottom line - we all get out in the field, have fun, maybe see some new species or new places to go butterflying!

please feel free to call me at home 860-873-9078 (I'll be away next Thurs and Friday), on my cell at 401-965-9064, or by e-mail.

Let's beat Wags!   ;-)

Clay Taylor
Moodus, CT
ctaylor at att.net 
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