Valley buckeyes

[Josh]

Howdy folks,

This summer seems to have been better than average for Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia) in the Valley. A friend posted on FaceBook yesterday that she’d had two in the past week, one yesterday on Moody Bridge Road in Hadley, the other on October 3 at Wentworth Farm Conservation Area in Amherst. This followed one in my yard in late July that was the first I’d seen here since 2019, and another photographed by a friend in late August, I think in Hadley. iNaturalist shows a few more in the area this summer, including a caterpillar in a yard not too far away from my own, on September 1:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/310865927

And another cat in Hampshire County just a few days ago, on the far side of the big river:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/318690733

Cheers,

Josh



Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D.
Amherst, MA
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/opihiman
https://www.facebook.com/opihi

Writer/compiler, Bird Observer
https://www.birdobserver.org/

Columnist, “Earth Matters”
https://www.gazettenet.com/search?bodysearch=earth+matters
https://www.hitchcockcenter.org/category/earth-matters/

Vice-president, Hampshire Bird Club
https://hampshirebirdclub.org/

Northeast Chapter head, Dragonfly Society of the Americas
https://www.dragonflysocietyamericas.org/northeastdsa