Field Report - Outer Banks, NC

[Mike Soukup]

I was on vacation to the Outer Banks of NC last week.  Weather was
mostly 80-90's during the day.  Butterfly-wise, I saw MANY(thousands) P.
sennae (Cloudless Sulphers).  I also caught several Long-Tail Skippers
(no latin name...I'm a moth guy!), 1 P. palamedes and 2 P. cresphontes
(Giant's).  I THINK I saw a few Eurema niceppe(Sleepy orange?)....but I
did not catch any so I can't verify it.

The intersting thing was the Pink-Spotted Hawkmoths (Agrius
Cingulatus).  There were literally huyndreds of them.  The house was on
the beach, so I set up one MV light oceanside and one MV light on the
bayside.  On the bayside (which WAS windward), I caught NOTHING.  I mean
absolutelty nothing.  Not even one insect at the light.  On the
Oceanside, I had hundreds of small Noctuids (no ID on many yet....except
there were MANY flower moths (Genus Schinnia)).  But, for me, the
excitement was the Agrius.  Several dozen were at my light every night
(when the wind wasn't blowing 100MPH! (well, maybe not THAT hard....but
REALLY blowing))  All were in perfect condition and many appeared to
have hatched that day from locations near the house as they still were
squirting mecomium when disturbed.  As I had never seen one before, it
was quite "cool".   Also, 1 Tersa sphinx (Xylophanes tersa) showed up.

That's all
-- 
Mike Soukup
mikayak at ix.netcom.com
Web Page => http://pw1.netcom.com/~mikayak
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