Hammonasset

[ButterflyPR at comcast.net]

Had a chance to check out the butterfly garden at Hammo yesterday while my daughter participated in a children's program at the nature center.  Ran into Noble Proctor who let me know what a few things were, as they were flying too quickly for me to identify at first!  The place was really hopping--here are my estimates:

Monarchs--Noble estimated 30
Orange Sulphur--6
Cabbage White--12
Eastern Tailed Blue--1
Azure--1
Buckeye--numerous (more than Monarchs?)
American Lady--2
Broadwing Skipper--numerous
Peck's Skipper--1
Black Swallowtail--2
Tiger Swallowtail--2
Comma--2
Question Mark--1
Red-Spotted Purple--1
Snowberry Clearwing Moth--3

I was having a marvelous time until a couple of young teenagers came along and started trying to catch the butterflies by hand.  The girl caught one and handed it to the boy, who made comments about pulling its wings off, held it by the wingtips and started blowing on it.  I asked them to let the butterfly go, and eventually they did, but then proceeded to make nasty comments about "Nature" in general.  It really put a damper on my day.  I know part of the purpose of the CBA is to protect butterflies, but I didn't think I'd need to directly protect them against humans!!

One note--to follow up Carol's post, it certainly is a banner year for Monarchs!  Our sixth eclosed this morning--we have two more chrysalides and four more caterpillars.  That is in addition to several chrysalides we've shared with other folks and all of the caterpillars we've given to our Brownie troop.  Yesterday at Hammo, I did notice that all of the Monarchs that I got a good look at seemed to be male.  When I was at my mother's house in Westport recently, most of the Monarchs seemed to be male (only one faded female).  Coincidence?

Diane