Butterflies around Sackville NB, including Baltimore and Bronze Copper - 7 Jul

[John Klymko]

Was out for a bit this morning just north of Sackville on Upper Aboujagane Rd. Had 20 species, all along a road through a cutover area: Least Skipper, European Skipper, Peck’s Skipper, Tawny-edged Skipper, Long Dash, Hobomok Skipper, Dun Skipper, Canadian Tiger Swallowtail, Pink-edged Sulphur, azure, Great Spangled Fritillary, Atlantis Fritillary, Harris’ Checkerspot, Northern Crescent, Baltimore Checkerspot, White Admiral, Viceroy, Northern Pearly-Eye, Eyed Brown, and Common Ringlet. 

On the way home I stopped at a boggy spot on Fairfield Road and picked up Bog Copper. 

Yesterday, in a wet ditch by the Sackville train station, I had a Bronze Copper. I was a little surprised to see it flying mid-day in the heat, as this is a species most active in the late afternoon.

Good butterflying!

John

[Phil Schappert]

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise (as Gomer would say...yes, I'm old enough to remember black and white TV, with rabbit ears!).

Today, despite the lovely weather (which has been in woefully short supply here in central NS), I decided to stick close to home, and now I'm glad I did. I went trolling for butterflies and odes at my local favorite spot, Roach's Pond. On the 20th of July I saw and photographed 5 different individual Harvesters there and late last week I photographed a female Slaty Skimmer so I told myself it was worth staying near home to check on them.

But I got a bigger surprise than I was expecting...after 5 years of visiting this site every 10 to 14 days (at least) through the season, I found my first hairstreak, a Striped to be exact. I got three quick (but poor, record-only) shots of it but by the time my brain figured out that I needed the flash, it was gone. It was, frankly, in the last place I expected to find it, deep in the shade on a back path to a wet marsh meadow, nowhere near any nectar sources.

Made my day (yes, I'm easily amused) and just goes to show that "repeat as necessary" applies to more than shampoo! Almost forgot, no Harvesters and while I saw the male Slaty Skimmer it never stopped to say "Hi! Take my picture...!"

Phil

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Phil Schappert, PhD

27 Clovis Ave.

Halifax, NS, B3P 1J3

902-460-8343 (cell)

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[Phil Schappert]

It's not often this happens so I'm gonna milk this a bit :)

Through a drama/comedy presented to me by NS Power (who managed to lose our power not once, not twice, but three times), I was up most of Sunday night into the wee hours of Monday morning, which killed my plans for the day...to head up to the Debert area and look for elusive Polygonia.

I had been up on Aug 7th and got a single photo of a gray comma (confirmed by Jim Edsall) from about 20 metres away. I wanted some better photos but NS Power conspired to keep me home. I finally ventured up again today and got some better photos (of both the ups and uns of gray comma)

But the highlight of the day was finding Eastern tailed-blues at three different locations along the E Folly Mtn Road in square 20MR63. At first I thought I'd found Acadian hairstreak but familiarity with tailed-blues from ON and TX, despite that I had absolutely no expectation of finding them here, soon brought me around.

It's not an everyday occurrence but it's sure nice when it happens. And it just goes to show that repeated visits to known sites at different times of the year are worthwhile. The photos are from 2 different locations...

[John Klymko]

Great find Phil! Definitely a major atlas highlight. Were you able to get a
specimen? For a new provincial species it would be good to have a specimen.

I've been out a fair but lately but haven't been seeing too much. Common species
seem be quite patchy right now. One site I was at near Riverside-Albert on
Tuesday had a lot of Atlantis Fritillaries still flying, but other seemingly
similar sites had virtually no frits. Similarly, I got Common Branded Skipper
from a site near Desable, PEI, yesterday. It was common there, but I didn't see
the species at a half dozen other seemingly suitable sites that I visited this
week.

Again, congratulations on the great find (and great photos)!

Cheers,
John

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[Phil Schappert]

At 9:45 AM -0300 8/22/13, John Klymko wrote:
>Great find Phil! Definitely a major atlas highlight. Were you able to get a
>specimen? For a new provincial species it would be good to have a specimen.

Didn't have any collecting gear with me, John, I just don't carry it
around any more. And I wasn't completely sure that it was new to the
province...I thought I remembered it being absent from the list but
what I think I remember and what I actually remember correctly are
often very different things!

But I'm tentatively planning on a return trip on Sunday morning (in
the heat of the afternoon yesterday they weren't basking so I didn't
get any dorsal shots) so will take gear along and see if I can
voucher one.

[Phil Schappert]

At 9:45 AM -0300 8/22/13, John Klymko wrote:

>Great find Phil! Definitely a major atlas highlight. Were you able to get a
>specimen? For a new provincial species it would be good to have a specimen.

I'm sorry to have to report, John, that not only did we not get a
voucher today, we didn't even see an ET Blue despite my earnest
searching. To be honest, I was embarrassed, having dragged Derek B.
along, to not find them. At one point, right at the corner where the
road changes from north-south to running east-west, Derek was
convinced that he saw a blue basking at the muskflower as we pulled
up but diligent searching failed to relocate it.

While five days doesn't seem like a long time, much had changed there
between Tuesday's find and todays non-results...the east-west running
portion of the road from just east of the blueberry field to the
bottom of the hill about 2 km west had been freshly graded. Worse, a
ditch about 30cm deep and 45cm wide had been dug into the north side
of the road over that entire length, with the dirt being simply
dumped on the south side (which is where most of the seeps are so,
needless to say, we didn't see any Polygonia today either).

There is one more year though, so I'll try to stay positive and plan
on blitzing the area next July and August...!

[John Klymko]

Thanks for the update Phil, sorry you didn't have much luck. Fortunately there
was an Eastern Tailed-Blue specimen taken last week in NS - Les McClair picked
one up near Windsor on Aug 22! So everyone should have there eyes out right now
for this species in NS. It could even show up in PEI!

Cheers,
John




Quoting Phil Schappert <phi...@eastlink.ca>:

[Dwayne Sabine]

Great find Phil! And multiple locations too.

I'm curious - did you notice Rabbitfoot Clover (Trifolium arvense) growing at these sites? While there are a number of legumes listed as potential hosts, I have found Eastern Tailed Blues about a half dozen times now, and have noticed that Rabbitfoot Clover is invariably present. There are always a couple of other legume species present as well, but I've had no other single species present at all sites yet.

I've yet to see or basking or sitting too, but you seem to have had good luck there. I've always flushed them while walking around in likely habitats.

Dwayne

[Phil Schappert]

>I'm curious - did you notice Rabbitfoot Clover (Trifolium arvense)
>growing at these sites? While there are a number of legumes listed
>as potential hosts, I have found Eastern Tailed Blues about a half
>dozen times now, and have noticed that Rabbitfoot Clover is
>invariably present. There are always a couple of other
>legume species present as well, but I've had no other single species
>present at all sites yet.

All three sites had a variety of Trifolium sp present, Dwayne,
including T. arvense, T aureum, T. repens and T.
pratense...impossible to say one of them is representative. However,
T. arvense was absent in ON sites where I commonly found ET
Blues...I've always associated them more with Vicia, including V.
cracca which was also present at all three sites here in NS. I
associated them with V. ludoviciana and Astragalus distortus in
central TX.

My familiarity with them from TX may be a range-limit lesson, too.
From my experience, ET Blues are excellent colonizers and apparently
fly great distances, which may explain them turning up in NS this
year. I managed a biology station for the University of TX at Austin
for a bit more than 10 years from 1997 through to 2007. I never
recorded ET Blues at the station -- central TX is the extreme
southwest edge of their range -- until a single tattered and torn
individual, presumably female (based on the subsequent history) was
photo'd on Sep. 12/04.

This was followed by a fresh male photo'd Nov. 23/04. Females were
seen the following year on Mar. 31/05, Apr. 2/05 and Apr. 7/05,
followed by a male on Apr. 29. A fresh female was again photo'd on
May 2/ 05 with a fresh male on May 12/05. I have no further photos
from 2005 (which may be due to their absence during the heat of
summer or my perception of them being common enough to not take
photos!). The last individual seen at the station, a fresh female,
was on Apr. 3/06. 2006 was a drought year and they were not
seen/photo'd for the remainder of the year and none were encountered
in 2007.

My feeling is that now that they're here in NS, they should persist
(given an assumption of continuing mild winters and the maritime
climate).