20 June, Hampshire County butterflies

[billb55]

Seen while out hiking:

E. Tiger Swallowtail 1

Cabbage White 4

Clouded Sulphur  1

Banded Hairstreak  8  really surprised to see these - seems early

E. Comma  1

Hoary Edge  7  great to see

Bill Benner

Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

[Josh]

Saw two (or more) apparent Banded Hairstreaks out my window yesterday too. Our backyard borders Amethyst Brook Conservation Area in Amherst. I couldn’t get the critters in my binoculars, but they engaged in the whirling midair dogfights that I’ve always associated with this species. One landed on a sumac leaf and attempted to bask, though it was mostly cloudy yesterday.

Looking back at my notes of past years, this doesn’t seem outrageously early. Some years I haven’t seen one until July, but in others they’ve shown up in June, usually in numbers. I had one exactly two years ago yesterday, June 23 2020, and noted in my MassLep post about this that at least two other people had their FOS of the species that same day. I noted a sudden mass appearance of them on 6-27-2013, with aerial dogfights involving 6 or 7 individuals at a time. My first-ever sighting of Banded HS in our yard was also my earliest seasonally: at least 4 of them dogfighting on June 19 2012.

Cheers,

Josh

Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D.
Amherst, MA

https://www.facebook.com/opihi

Vice-president, Hampshire Bird Club

https://hampshirebirdclub.org/

Northeast Chapter head, Dragonfly Society of the Americas

https://www.dragonflysocietyamericas.org/northeastdsa

Citizen science pages:

http://bugguide.net/user/view/2399

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

https://ebird.org/profile/MTk1MTQw/US-MA 

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