Great butterfly day in NC!

[Randy Emmitt]

Folks,

While a lot of our butterfliers are in south Fla. on the NABA weekend. I
held down the fort in North Carolina having a great day with getting 45
species a new all time high for myself in one day! Just about everything
was on white flowers including Dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum), Ox-eye
Daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum), Common Fleabane (Erigeron
philadelphicus) and Yarrow (Achillea millefolium).

I adopted Caswell County last year because it was lacking many many
species and yet great butterflying. with days of 30+ species pretty
common. As you can see just today I added 10 county records and had 2
species that were all time high counts for the state.

American Ladies and Summer Azures were everywhere it seemed and one
place I found 20 Great Spangled Fritillaries swarming in a rich
bottomland forest. I`d consider these butterflies as good finds in NC:
Banded Hairstreak, Eastern Pine Elfin, Northern Pearly-eye, Confused
Cloudywing and pepper and Salt Skipper. Big misses were Red-banded
Hairstreak, Viceroy and Monarch.

I butterflied Caswell County  from 11 am til 5:30 pm and it was hot in
the upper 80s, very dry and
sunny with a few clouds thrown in. Here`s the list

Zebra Swallowtail (1)
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (7)
Spicebush Swallowtail (4)
Cabbage White (35)
Clouded Sulphur (2)
Orange Sulphur (40)
Sleepy Orange (1) (very tiny)
Banded Hairstreak (2) new county record!  (photos of both on dogbane)
Eastern Pine Elfin (3) new county record!  (photos on daisies)
Juniper Hairstreak (12) new state high count! (photos on daisies)
Gray Hairstreak (3)
Eastern Tailed Blue (8)
Summer Azure (110)
Variegated Fritillary (11)
Great Spangled Fritillary (60)
Silvery Checkerspot (2)
Pearl Crescent (32)
Question Mark (9)
Eastern Comma (2)
Mourning Cloak (1)
American Lady (95)
Red Admiral (2)
Common Buckeye (3)
Red-spotted Purple (10)
Hackberry Emperor (2)  new county record!(photos)
Northern Pearly-eye (2)  new county record!
Carolina Satyr (14)
Little Wood Satyr (35) new state high count!
Silver-spotted Skipper (14)
Hoary Edge (21)
Southern Cloudywing (13)
Northern Cloudywing (8)
Confused Cloudywing (2)  new county record! (firm ID)
Zarruco Duskywing (1)  new county record!
Swarthy Skipper (2)  new county record!
Least Skipper (4) (edge of wildlife pond)
Tawny Edge (2)(firm IDs)
Crossline Skipper (15)
Southern Broken Dash (2) new county record!
Northern Broken dash (1)  new county record!
Little Glassywing (1)
Sachem (3)
Zabulon Skipper (2)
Dusted Skipper (1)(edge of wildlife pond)
Pepper and Salt Skipper (1)  new county record!(photo on a daisy)

What`s flying in your neck of the woods?

Regards,

Randy Emmitt
Rougemont, NC
www.rlephoto.com