[Ctleps-l] Re; Butterfly sightings

[Steve Walter]

A couple of thoughts from me. 

 

1)      To what extent is the dearth of Banded Hairstreaks local? In my local park in Queens (Alley Pond Park), I’ve been seeing fair numbers regularly since June 22.  A June 26 trip to a couple of locations near the Hudson River yielded about 18 in all. That’s a far cry from what those site were like last year, but not terrible. Meanwhile, I don’t think anyone has gotten a Banded Hairstreak at  Westchester’s Ward Pound Ridge Reservation this year, a feat that seems impossible if we were trying. A theory that’s been posed for the low numbers of many species this year is that larvae were killed off by cold weather in April. So it might be that local variances in temperatures would have hit some areas harder than others. 

 

2)      If they’re not coming to flowers, does that mean they’re not there? The ones I’ve been getting in Alley Pond Park have been gotten by walking through oak woods and focusing on sunny glades. Often there are several in one sunlit area, doing their whirly thing with each other. Doing the Westchester count the other day, my party did not find any at our usually most reliable milkweed site. Later on, at another location, we found several by looking up at sunlit oak trees. 

 

 

Steve Walter

Bayside, NY

 

From: ctleps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:ctleps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Peter DeGennaro
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2016 8:35 PM
To: Lenny Brown <epmanshell at gmail.com>; Ctleps-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Ctleps-l] Re; Butterfly sightings

 

I've noticed the lack of Banded Hairstreaks as well. Believe it or not, it took me until July 5th to get my first one of the year, and that was at my "go-to" spot for this species where males can be found holding territory. Similar with Gunntown Park in western Naugatuck where I failed to find any, only the lone Hickory. Banded is usually regular there.

 

Peter DeGennaro

 

On Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 8:07 PM, Lenny Brown <epmanshell at gmail.com <mailto:epmanshell at gmail.com> > wrote:

During the morning of July 7th, Steve Rosenthal and I visited different sites in Naugatuck Industrial Park where we found a total of 21 species of butterflies.  The list for the day is as follows:

 

Black Swallowtail (1)

Spicebush Swallowtail (1)

Cabbage White (1)

Clouded Sulphur (1)

Orange Sulphur (4)

American Copper (1)

Coral Hairstreak (2) (end of Great Hill Rd.)

Acadian Hairstreak (4) (Raytkwich Rd. & Rado Dr.)

Edwards' Hairstreak (1) (end of Great Hill Rd.)

Hickory Hairstreak (1) (Raytkwich Rd.)

Eastern Tailed-Blue (3)

Summer Azure (2)

Great Spangled Fritillary (15)

Question Mark (1)

Little Wood-Satyr (3)

Common Wood Nymph (6)

Silver-spotted Skipper (1)

Wild Indigo Duskywing (30)

European Skipper (2)

Little Glassywing (6)

Dun Skipper (8)

 

Two closing comments.

 

We were surprised that we could not find any Banded Hairstreaks.  Normally, they are the most common species of Satyrium hairstreaks.

 

By 11:30 AM, butterflies appeared to be showing signs of distress from the heat, e.g. by perching in shaded spots and becoming very sluggish.  

 

Lenny Brown

Wallingford


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