Spring butterflies

[Dwayne Sabine]

Anyone getting out yet?

I've been out locally over the past few days, taking advantage of the beautiful weather.  Not a lot of activity yet.  Small numbers of Cabbage and Mustard Whites are evident, and there are lots of Spring Azures around.  Other than that, I've seen only a single Comma sp. and a single Mourning Cloak so far.

Dwayne sabine

Fredericton, NB

[John Klymko]

I haven't had much either Dwayne, but I haven't been out too much.

Yesterday afternoon Sarah Robinson and I went to a couple sites on River Phillip and a couple sites around Debert. At River Phillip we visited rich floodplain habitats hoping for some commas, specifically Eastern and Hoary. Neither has been recorded in NS recently (the most recent Eastern and Satyr Comma records I know of are from 1982 and 1968, respectively!). Their host plant, Stinging Nettle, is a species of floodplains, so I figured River Phillip was a good candidate. At Debert I was hoping to find Eastern Pine Elfin in the pine forests there. All we managed to find though was Northern Spring Azure (present pretty well everywhere) and a single white (could have been either Cabbage or Mustard, saw it from a distance).

I have heard reports of a number of other spring species (Eastern Pine and Hoary Elfin, all the commas except Eastern, and Mourning Cloak). Anne Marsch had an American Lady on April 29. There have been precious few other records of American Lady reported to eButterfly this year from elsewhere in the Northeast, so I'm wondering if Anne's was an overwinterer.

Cheers,

John

[Phil Schappert]

I got out for the first time, finally, yesterday afternoon, though I
had a finite amount of time so had to stay close to home. At Roach's
Pond I saw 3 spring azures, 2 or 3 cabbage whites and 1 definite
mustard white (but got photos of none). At home, I have seen a few
cabbage whites (including one I released from my deck box...I had
found the pupa on the top latch casing last fall). My banana feeder
has been up and stocked for the past 2 weeks but I've had no visitors
as yet.

The next 7 days, here in central NS, do not look promising (though we
do need the rain...)

Phil

--

Phil Schappert, PhD

27 Clovis Ave.
Halifax, NS, B3P 1J3
902-460-8343 (cell)

www.philschappert.com
www.papiliomusic.ca

"Just let imagination lead, reality will follow through..."
(Michael Hedges)

[John Klymko]

Phil,
Good to hear you have a bait running. There are old Satyr Comma records from
Armdale and Ragged Lake, and old Eastern Comma records from Armdale.
John

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[Phil Schappert]

>Good to hear you have a bait running. There are old Satyr Comma records from
>Armdale and Ragged Lake, and old Eastern Comma records from Armdale.

I had a grey comma here May 18, 2010 (but that was the year before I
put up the feeder here). I keep hoping...

[John Klymko]

Jim Edsall just told be about a more recent Satyr Comma record. Peter
Payzant had one at Bible Hill in June, 2005. You can see the photos here
http://novascotiabutterflies.ca/ss.cgi?s=saco

-----Original Message-----
From: maritimes-bu...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:maritimes-bu...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Phil
Schappert

[Phil Schappert]

>Jim Edsall just told be about a more recent Satyr Comma record. Peter
>Payzant had one at Bible Hill in June, 2005. You can see the photos here
>http://novascotiabutterflies.ca/ss.cgi?s=saco

And my grey comma photos are at
http://novascotiabutterflies.ca/ss.cgi?s=gyco (forgot about that!)

[Dwayne Sabine]

Phil,

I put up a banana feeder last summer after seeing yours, and kept it out for over a month.  I put it out again last week.  I've tried bananas, melons, and some other soft fruits, and even beer, and so far have had no luck at all.  Discouraging, but I figure I will keep at it through an entire season.  Surely something will eventually find it!

Dwayne

[DGusset]

Can you describe the 'banana feeder' ? I'd like to try putting one out....

I have been out a fair bit in the last two weeks, and I have not seen any butterflies here yet (Duncans Cove/Chebucto Head area, outside of Halifax).

Mind you, my highest temperatures have not gone above the mid-teens, and there's always a seabreeze....

DG

[Phil Schappert]

Maybe it's the situation, Dwayne? My house backs onto a small woodlot
(about 2 acres in size, mostly maple/birch with a few red oaks) with
a bit of marshland and a stream running through it and the feeder
hangs from a large red maple right at the edge of the woods...the
back of the house faces south so the feeder is on the north edge and
is never in the direct sun.

Considering that i) its Nova Scotia, and ii) there's not much for
typical shade species larval host plants in the woods, I think I've
had pretty good attendance at/luck with the feeder. Visitors from 7
or 8 species have found the feeder over the past two years, including
many question marks, red admirals and mourning cloaks plus singletons
of wood nymph, pearly eye, eyed brown and a ringlet (all photo'd at
one time or another). I may be missing a species but can't think of
what it was right now. The most I've had is 3 sp. at the same time
and the most individuals has been about 15 or so (generally mixed
question marks and red admirals). Am waiting for my first white
admiral to show or those ever elusive commas...

Nothing like the feeders I used to run at the biology station in TX
where I could count on 20 or so species as visitors and each of 4
feeders could have as many as 2 or 3 dozen individuals at any given
time. But, that was TX...for those of us who like the Nymphalids and
Satyrids, if you've never visited the Rio Grande Valley and seen the
bait feeder use there, then you've not yet been to heaven!

Phil

PS: don't forget to check the feeders at night! I had a number of
intriguing moths last summer...

[Phil Schappert]

>Can you describe the 'banana feeder' ? I'd like to try putting one out....

The simplest feeder is just a compost pile in a shady spot (it's
important to keep in mind that butterflies (and moths!) that are
attracted to fruit tend to be tree-feeding shade lovers). Add fruit
and anything else that ferments!

A real simple feeder, like the ones I used in TX, just consists of a
piece of aluminum screen sandwiched between 2 wooden "frames" and
hung with wire from screw-in-type eyes at the corners. You can make
them any size you need but as you get larger the screen will sag in
the middle and will need some cross members. The screens are great
because butterflies (and moths at night!) can get at the fruit from
both the upper and lower sides...some species seem to prefer to hang
from the bottom of the feeder. But bananas and other fruit dry out
much faster when they're surrounded by air.

My more "civilized" feeder here (so the wife doesn't complain that
it's "unsightly") is a hanging cedar feeder/bird bath that I found at
WalMart. It has a plastic dish (basically an 8" plant saucer) inside
a hexagonal cedar frame with a perforated bottom. Rain water has to
be drained from the dish after every rain (unless you also hang the
feeder under a clear acrylic squirrel guard -- these were common in
the States but I've not found one large enough to do the trick here)
but the dish keeps the banana from drying out as fast. I just add
another layer of sliced banana every 5 or so days...a few layers and
the butterflies are much easier to see/photo. I empty the dish and
clean it out about once a month.

Here, with one feeder, I'm going through about 4 large bananas a
week. I just slice off the stem, slice them lengthwise and lay the
halves fruit side up in the feeder. In TX, where I had 4 large screen
feeders, I was going through 2 large bags (the "unsellable" bananas
that end up bagged at the supermarket) of bananas a week. Even
discounted, it could get expensive!

[Phil Schappert]

Ooops, forgot to mention. A buddy of mine in TX, who was more
interested in just seeing/identifying butterflies and moths, rather
than photographing them, came up with a real simple solution: just
stuff banana slices into one of those wire suet feeders. After awhile
they can be pretty unsightly (and thus are not very photogenic) but
they are a real simple way to attract and feed butterflies.

And, before I forget, please (PLEASE) avoid anything marketed as a
"butterfly feeder" that uses sugar water to fill what looks anything
like a hummingbird feeder. They work well in butterfly houses and
exhibits but are just a waste of money outside of them.

[DGusset]

Thanks for the info, I will definitely try this. 

Though at my place, I'm going to have to bring it in every night to keep the racoons out of it !!

[Dwayne Sabine]

I used a variation of Phil's plant saucer feeder.  I took an old frisbee, drilled about a dozen 1/4 inch holes for water drainage, flipped it upside down and drilled 3 roughly equidistant holes in the rim to ties strings to.  Raccoons are a major problem here, so I hang it from a freestanding plant hook made from 1/2 inch steel rod that is about 6 feet tall (bought in a late summer garden centre sale, and nowhere near strong enough to hang a potted plant as it turns out). I stick it out in the lawn away from any overhanging branches, and so far the raccoons have been stymied.

 

I live in a heavily wooded subdivision and do see Commas sporadically, so I am sure it is just a matter of time before it gets used.  By the time I first put it out late last summer, the big pulse of Red Admirals and Question Marks was pretty much finished.