We had a great turn out of 15 folks yesterday for the Carolina Butterfly Society Triad Chapter butterfly walk in the old Moravian settlement, Historic Bethabara Park, in Winston Salem (Forsyth County), NC. First we checked the progress of the expansion of the butterfly garden hosted by CBS member Harriet McCarthy, who is in charge of both the oldest medicinal garden in the US as well as the new butterfly garden. Then we spent some time looking for butterflies around the grounds and the adjacent part of the greenway led by Gene Schepker.

Considering the paucity of butterflies in the eastern part of the Carolinas this year, we did pretty well. We saw a total of 40 butterflies of 14 species. Included among them were two particularly notable butterflies. The first was a Harvester that was perched on a blade of grass on its side just an inch or so off the wet ground. Not only is it good to see that species, the behavior was odd. Perhaps it was trying to dry our and warm up after a rainy night. (A photo is attached.) The second notable butterfly was a pearly-eye.

One of our group spotted the pearly-eye in the edge of the woods in dense shade where it was hard to see next to the brightly lit greenway. Someone in the group speculated that it could be a Creole pearly-eye, probably the least common of the three species of pearly-eyes that we have in most places in NC. Using their camera flashes, several folks got photos of it perched on the side of a tree at about eye level, which was good because it was hard to make out the details in the low light.

It clearly wasn’t a Southern Pearly-eye because the antennal clubs, which were visible even in the shade, were orange and black, not all black. That narrowed the choices to Creole Pearly-eye and Northern Pearly-eye. Creoles usually have 5 spots on the forewing, but none of the photos showed more than 4 on the one we were looking at, even though it did move it’s forewing up and down a slight bit. That left the other field mark, the so-called “knuckles” on the median forewing line. It did have some small knuckle-like extensions but they weren’t as largely “knuckled” as might be expected. Consequently, we’ve concluded that it was a Northern Pearly-eye. I’ve attached one of my photos.

For photos see the Triad Chapter Photos page

The complete list:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail 4
Cabbage White 6
Orange Sulphur 1
Sleepy Orange 1
Harvester 1
Eastern Tailed-Blue 6
Great Spangled Fritillary 3
“Summer” Azure 1
American Lady 2
Northern Pearly-eye 1
Silver-spotted Skipper 5
Hoarace’s Duskywing 1
Sachem 2
Zabulon Skipper 6 (all males)

Totals: 40 butterflies of 14 species

Dennis
—
Dennis E. Burnette

Carolina butterfliers,

The Carolina Butterfly Society Triad Chapter hosted a butterfly field trip in the hope that Triangle butterfliers would join us in Cedarock Park south of Burlington in Alamance County, NC. The park is about half way in between the Triad and the Triangle. In addition to several folks from the Triad, we did have two people from the Triangle, as well as one from the Charlotte area and one from Greenville, South Carolina.

It was a nearly perfect day for looking for butterflies. In our area the low numbers of butterflies in 2014 seem to be repeating in 2015 so far, so we didn’t have high expectations. Consequently, when we ended the morning with 68 butterflies of 16 species, we were happy. We even saw a couple of grass skippers, a group that has been scarce this year.
In addition to seeing a reasonable assortment of butterflies, we heard several Wood Thrushes singing, saw an American Toad and heard Cricket Frogs, encountered several species of dragonflies, and even spotted an Eastern Garter Snake. All in all, it was a fun outing.
Below is out butterfly list for the day.

Dennis Burnette

Alamance County, NC, Cedarock Park, 5/16/15

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail 3
Spicebush Swallowtail 1
[Unknown dark swallowtails 2]
Cabbage White 3
Orange Sulphur 2
Sleepy Orange 1
Azure sp 34 (oddly no Eastern Tailed-Blues)
American Snout 2
Silvery Checkerspot 2
Pearl Crescent 3
Red Admiral 1
Red-spotted Purple 5
Hackberry Emperor 1
Gemmed Satyr 2
Carolina Satyr 3
Northern Cloudywing 1
Zabulon Skipper 1
[Unidentified dark grass skipper 1]

Species 16; Individuals 68

The Triad Chapter of the Carolina Butterfly Society held a butterfly walk and caterpillar talk on Saturday, June 14, 2014, at Haw River State Park on the Guilford/Rockingham County line in North Carolina.

We met at 9:00 am during an unusual weather day for mid June in that it was sunny but the temperature at the nearby airport was only 68 degrees. Dew was still on the leaves when we set out. As people have been reporting all season, we have had a low number of butterflies throughout the eastern part of North Carolina from about Guilford County east, so combined with the cool morning, it was somewhat remarkable that we saw 13 species of butterflies in about a two hour period. All but four were single individuals, and the rest were two each. The list is below.

Following the walk, Jim Nottke, assisted by Charlie Cameron and Gene Schepker, conducted a talk and demonstration with live butterfly caterpillars that they had brought from home where they are rearing them. This was of particular interest to the children attending, although all of us learned a lot from the experience.

This event was open to the public as part of the NC State Parks “Year of the Lepidoptera” activities. Nothing is planned yet, but we talked with the park staff about doing something similar at a later date in late summer or next spring.

—–

Below is the list of butterflies seen on this trip. All were in the Rockingham County portion of the park near the Haw River in a natural gas line right-of-way, and around the lake.

Zebra Swallowtail 1
Spicebush Swallowtail 2
Cabbage White 2
Eastern Tailed-Blue 1
Summer? Azure 2
Gray Hairstreak 1
Pearl Crescent 1
Great Spangled Fritillary 1
Silver-spotted Skipper 2
Southern Cloudywing 1
Southern Broken-Dash 1
Delaware Skipper 1
Zabulon Skipper 1

Dennis
—
Dennis E. Burnette
Greensboro, NC 27410
[email protected]

Fourteen butterfliers participated in the Triad Chapter’s field trip to Historic Bethabara Park in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, NC on May 24.

We began the morning by checking on the progress of the expansion of the butterfly garden. Harriet McCarthy, a CBS member and also a Master Gardener, is the curator of this and other sections of the garden. Harriet explained the design of the butterfly garden and how it fits in with the other garden sections that include vegetables, fruits, herbs, and medicinal plants that are thought to have been used by the original Moravian settlers.

Following the garden demonstration, we spent some time looking for butterflies around the grounds, and we walked a portion of the adjacent greenway. This part of the outing was ably led by Gene Schepker.

Butterflies have been somewhat scarce in our area so far this season. We felt lucky to have seen 45 butterflies of the following 12 species:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail 7,
unidentified dark swallowtail 2,
Cabbage White 3,
Azure sp. 8,
Silvery Checkerspot 3,
Pearl Crescent 3,
Eastern Comma 1,
Silver-spotted Skipper 2,
Common Sootywing 2,
Least Skipper 4,
Little Glassywing 1,
Sachem 3,
and Zabulon Skipper 6.

Dennis
—
Dennis E. Burnette
Greensboro, NC 27410
[email protected]

It was a beautiful sunny warm day to be out looking for butterflies on Sunday afternoon, May 4, and Cedarock Park in southern Alamance Co. south of Burlington, NC, looked like a great place to find them. The park features a variety of good butterfly habitats, including meadows, woodlands, pond edges, and a pretty little creek, usually with many nectar flowers. Unfortunately, the butterflies didn’t agree; we saw only five species!

No doubt the lack of butterflies was due to another species that was abundant throughout the park: humans. The park had recently been mowed and raked right up to the edges of the woods and ponds to the extent that there were almost no nectar flowers in sight anyplace.

Probable reasons for the close grooming of the park grounds became obvious quickly. The park was quite crowded. There was some sort of music event near an outdoor stage, and what appeared to be a disc golf tournament was going on with several teams of four flinging their discs long distances over much of the meadows. Folks not involved in either of those activities were gathered around the pond fishing or occupying the picnic shelters.

After about an hour and a half of walking along the woodland edges and around the pond, our butterfly group decided to give up. As several of us agreed, any day you’re outside in such fine weather is a good day, so at least we got to enjoy a nice walk in the park.

Those of us trying to learn dragonflies saw Common Baskettail, Lancet Clubtail, Blue Corporal, Common Whitetail, and Green Darner near the pond. That’s one more species of dragonfly than our total for butterflies!

The few butterflies we saw mostly were in flight (looking for nectar flowers, probably). We noted one (possibly two) Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, two yellows that probably were Orange Sulphurs, one Pearl Crescent, and one Silvery Checkerspot. The one butterfly species that was reasonably abundant was Carolina Satyr, since it’s a woodland species unaffected by the recent mowing. We saw 8+ of that species.

Dennis
—
Dennis E. Burnette
Greensboro, NC 27410
[email protected]