Butterfly Sightings 9/01 & 9/02

[Clay Taylor]

Hi All -

    After leaving Lenny B. in Madison, Rich and I added to our list Wild
Indigo Duskywings (2), Broad-winged Skippers (3), American Coppers (8+), and
Gray Hairstreak (1) around the Fenwick section of Old Saybrook, and then
found a stunning, fresh Leonard's Skipper at the Boardman Road pond in East
Haddam.  I don't normally bring up this subject, but through my EL's the
Lenny looked freshly hatched - every scale and hair was in place, and the
colors were super-contrasty and vivid!  This was a look that I'll remember
for many years.

    That brought the list up to 25, and we still missed things like Red
Admiral, RSP, Black Swallowtail, Meadow Frit, etc.  Thus, it is still easily
possible to tally over 30 species in September - not bad!  It would be
interesting to try a Connecticut Butterfly Big Day - which time of year
would be the best, and how many species could be found?  Running from the
Northwest Corner to the Hackberry Coast could be kind of fun, eh?

    I also went out on Saturday 9/02, looking to get a few photos of that
stunning Leonard's Skipper.  The one at Boardman Road was hard to locate -
it flew onto the Eupatorium for only a few seconds, and then disappeared.
I went to check Ballek's field, but it had been mowed on Friday, as well as
the Mt. Parnassus Rd. Skating Rink and the small area across the road by
Shagbark Lumber.  Oh, well.   On to the Shanaghan Road powerline, and a
gorgeous Buckeye posed for photos just uphill from the gate at the
powerline.  Up top were lots of American Coppers, Eastern Tailed-blues,
Clouded and Orange Sulphurs, an American Lady, and a very healthy little
group of Lenny's Skippers!  I have looked for them there every fall for the
last 3 or 4 years, but presumably the wet summer has provided lots of
grasses, goldenrod and Joe-Pye Weed and that has made the difference.  There
were at least 5 individuals present, but never more than two at any one
time - they all appeared to be males.  One had already lost a lot of the
hairs off his back (thorax), so he must have been flying for at least a few
days.  Some were cruising the area at high speed, pausing to alight on the
Joe-Pye, and the "local" would appear out of nowhere to chase off the
invader.   I never did figure out where his perches were, evidently down in
the goldenrod leaves, but he zealously guarded those four big Joe-Pye
flowerheads!   After 45 minutes I had to leave and meet Debbie and the kids,
otherwise I would have spent a couple of hours studying them and their
behavior patterns.  Fascinating!!!

    If the weather is decent, I'll go back again this weekend.

Clay Taylor
-----Original Message-----
From: Epmanshell at aol.com <Epmanshell at aol.com>
To: ctleps-L at lists.yale.edu <ctleps-L at lists.yale.edu>
Date: Saturday, September 02, 2000 4:37 PM
Subject: Re: Butterfly Sightings


>On Friday, September 1st,  Clay Taylor, Rich Chyinski and I visited Bauer
>Park in Madison and found a total of twenty species of butterflies.  The
>species list is as follows:
>
>Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (1), Spicebush Swallowtail (1), Cabbage White
(55),
>Clouded Sulphur (1), Orange Sulphur (7), White-M Hairstreak (1), Eastern
>Tailed Blue (4), Summer Azure (2), Great Spangled Fritillary (4), Pearl
>Crescent (2),  American Lady (3), Common Buckeye (1), Common Wood Nymph
(2),
>Monarch (2), Silver-spotted Skipper (3), Least Skipper (5), Fiery Skipper
>(2-3), Peck's Skipper (15), Northern Broken Dash (3), Zabulon Skipper (4)
>
>Lenny Brown
>Wallingford
>
>