Carlisle Cranberry Bog, Aug 2

[Alan Ankers]

For today’s Mass Butterfly Club/Carlisle Conservation Foundation walk at the Carlisle Cranberry Bog, I was joined by at least thirty butterfly enthusiasts. It was hard to get an accurate count because more folks kept arriving, but after over three hours of searching, attrition had knocked that number down to twelve.

 

The weather forecast was adamant that we would be kept under cloudy skies, but this was not the case. As a group we tallied sixteen species of butterfly, a good selection of dragonflies and, I was informed, quite a few of the relatively rare and threatened Golden Northern Bumble Bee (Bombus Fervidus).

 

Approximate counts of what I saw:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail – 1

Spicebush Swallowtail – 2 (one of which posed incredibly cooperatively allowing the spread out group to all appreciate)

Cabbage White – 16

Clouded Sulphur - 3

Gray Hairstreak – 1 (Last bug of the day, a nice ending!)

Eastern Tailed-Blue – 2

Summer Azure – 1

Great Spangled Fritillary – 2

Pearl Crescent – 22

Viceroy – 4

Monarch – 6

Appalachian Brown – 2

Common Ringlet – 3

Common Wood-Nymph – 1

 

And by others of the group:

Red Spotted Purple – 1

Least Skipper – 1

 

Alan Ankers

Carlisle, MA