8/2/25 - Taunton, Raynham and Wareham

[Andrew Griffith]

We hit a few places today.  Beautiful weather, upper 70's, a little breezy and full sun.  

Taunton, MA - Westville Conservation Area

We went here again mainly to check on the Alder trees to see if they had any wooly aphids.  They did not have any, so all hopes of a Harvester population there were sort of dashed.  There were a few species flying, but not as much as we had thought.  

3 Monarchs

2 Peck's Skippers

1 Least Skipper

1 Common Wood Nymph

2 Pearl Crescents

3 Cabbage Whites

Raynham, MA - Borden Colony

We have always had a bit of luck here.  Today was not exception.  No matter what the weather says, it feels 10 degrees hotter here every time.  The place is usually overgrown with a bit of everything, but it seems as though they did some massive invasive control at some point a month or more ago, and the fields are bursting with milkweed with fresh blooms and other nectar plants!  Not sure that I have ever seen so much flowering milkweed in August before.  As a result, there were some good numbers of individuals and species.  

20+ Monarchs

50+ Sulphurs - mostly Clouded but about 10 or so Orange in there as well

8 Common Buckeyes

1 Red-banded Hairstreak

5 Cabbage Whtes

12 Pearl Crescents

6 Eastern Tailed Blues

2 Eastern Tiger Swallowtails (first of the year for us.  How??)

5 Tawny-edged Skippers

1 Viceroy

1 Zabulon Skipper male

1 American Copper

Then when we got home, there were a few notable species in the yard here in Wareham.  Nothing too special, but it is good to see things picking up a bit more.  

3 Monarchs

4 Sachems

3 Tawny-edged Skippers

1 Clouded Sulphur

1 American Copper

3 Broad-winged Skippers

3 Cabbage Whites

Andrew & Lauren Griffith