5/7/26 - Plum Island Butterflies

[Paul Seaman]

A lovely day yesterday (5/7/26) at Plum Island as bird migration is heating up and plant and insect life is slowly returning. I saw 101 species of birds in the roughly seven hours I spent exploring, and several butterflies, many of which were my first so far this year. The full list:

Azure Sp. 1x 
Cabbage White 13x
Clouded Sulphur 17x
Eastern Tailed-Blue 2x (photo)
American Copper 3x
Orange Sulphur 3x

Almost all the butterflies I saw except for a few of the Cabbage Whites and the lone Azure (at lot 5) were along the Stage Island Trail at Lot 6 which is in Ipswich, although Plum Island technically includes four towns: Newburyport, Newbury, Rowley, and Ipswich. 

Paul Seaman

Ipswich, MA