Walker Butterfly Festival August 13
Martha Gach
Dear Mass Leppers,
This is the 15th year for the Barbara Walker Butterfly Festival at Broad Meadow Brook! Barbara was an enthusiastic MBC member who spent her lunch hour traveling from UMass to BMB to watch butterflies. Before her death in 2007, she helped find federal funding for habitat management to support butterflies – it continues to this day.
The Festival celebrates butterflies and honors Barbara’s legacy. It runs this year on August 13 from 12-4. Please join us!
We are looking for MBC folks to help with the MBC table, talk to other butterfly enthusiasts, and interpret the butterflies that show up. Short photography demonstrations are welcome. Please reach out to me if you can come – it’s always a fun time!
This year also features:
Sam Jaffe’s amazing The Caterpillar Lab www.thecaterpillarlab.org
Native plant sales by Worcester’s LadyFern Farm www.ladyfernfarm.com
Grow Native Mass
Juniper Farms Ice Cream Truck (1-1:30+ pm)
Children’s activities & crafts
Nature walks
Garden tours
I hope to see you there!
Martha Gach (she/her)
President, Massachusetts Butterfly Club
Barbara Volkle
attended, mostly families.
Butterflies we saw during the day, reported by several observers, were:
Silver-spotted Skipper
Monarch
Spicebush Swallowtail
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
Zabulon Skipper
Peck's Skipper
American Copper
Viceroy
Common Ringlet
Pearl Crescent
Common wood- Nymph
Eastern Tailed-blue
Black Swallowtail
Gray Hairstreak
Common Buckeye
Sam Jaffe and the crew from the Caterpillar Lab wowed both kids and
adults alike www.caterpillarlab.org . Sam also showed us Falcate
Orangetip crystalis!
Thanks to all who helped with the Massachusetts Butterfly Club table, to
all the volunteers and attendees. Many thanks to Martha Gach and the
staff at MA Audubon Broad Meadow Brook Sanctuary for making it happen.
Barbara Volkle
Northborough, MA
bar...@theworld.com