Butterflies in SE AZ -- BTBTour results

[Harry LeGrand]

The Butterflies through Binoculars Tours recently had a week-long trip to
southeast AZ -- April 24-30. Jim Brock was the leader. Jim warned us that there
had been the La Nina drought all winter, plus a snow and severe freeze around
Easter. Butterflying in the week or two before the trip had been dismal, and he
thought we might not see over 25 species for the entire week! In a normal
spring, he told us he could see 45 species in a day, and might expect 75 species
in a week in late April.

Faced with these daunting facts, we trudged ahead. The weather all week was
sunny and dry; hardly any clouds. However, the temps were cooler than normal,
with highs mostly 68-80, rather than the normal 85 degrees. This hurt
butterflying at a few sites in mid-morning, and it wasn't until 10 am in some
places before things got going.

Yes, it was a dismal trip in terms of overall numbers. Hardly any large
butterflies were seen -- very few swallowtails, almost no pierids, no Vanessa
species, fritillaries, etc. But, we did OK on skipper diversity, and I thought
we did reasonably well on the target species. Who really comes to AZ to look for
Cloudless Sulphur, American and Painted ladies, Checkered White, etc.?

We did manage to find 53 species, though on only one day did we even reach 20
species!  Here is the list, with my estimated number, and number of days seen in
parentheses. I'll not go into specifics about locations. Basically, we covered
parts of the Santa Catalinas, Chiricahuas, Huachucas, Santa Ritas, and
Whetstones.

Pipevine Swallowtail  12 (5)
Black Swallowtail  2  (1)
Two-tailed Swallowtail  1
Sleepy Orange  1
Mexican Yellow  2  (2)
Dainty Sulphur  4  (3)
Gray Hairstreak  1
Juniper (Siva) Hairstreak  5  (2)
Thicket Hairstreak  1
Arizona Hairstreak  6  (2)
Spring Azure  6  (3)
Eastern Tailed-Blue  5  (2)
Acmon Blue  7  (3)
Marine Blue  7 (4)
Mormon Metalmark  1
Arizona Metalmark  3  (1)
Fatal Metalmark  4  (1)
Zela Metalmark  8  (3)
Theona Checkerspot  2  (2)
Fulvia Checkerspot  1
Tiny Checkerspot  3  (1)
Elada Checkerspot  4  (3)
Texan Crescent  3  (3)
Pearl Crescent  5  (2)
Painted Crescent  2  (2)
Mylitta Crescent  1
Common Buckeye  1
Red-spotted Purple  2  (2)
Viceroy  1
California Sister  11  (4)
Empress Leilia  1
Silver-spotted Skipper  2  (1)
Short-tailed Skipper  18  (3)
Caicus Skipper  6  (2)
Golden-headed Scallopwing  67  (6)
Arizona Powdered-Skipper  2  (2)
Sleepy Duskywing  6  (4)
Juvenal's Duskywing  2  (2)
Meridian Duskywing  2  (2)
Mournful Duskywing  12  (6)
Pacuvius Duskywing  1
Funereal Duskywing  3  (3)
Common (White) Checkered-Skipper  1
Desert Checkered-Skipper  3  (2)
Common Streaky-Skipper  20  (5)
Saltbush Sootywing  10  (1)
Tropical Least Skipper  5  (1)
Orange Skipperling  21  (5)
Pahaska Skipper  1
Carus Skipper  9  (2)
White-barred Skipper  9  (5)
Sheep Skipper  6  (2)
Dotted Roadside-Skipper  1


            Harry LeGrand
            Raleigh, NC
            harry_legrand at mail.enr.state.nc.us