Green Ridge count plans for 2026
Rick Borchelt
Historically, we’ve tried to run the spring count on the weekend closest to April 11, and the summer count on the weekend closest to July 11. I’d like to propose moving the spring date ahead by one week (April 4 – and recognizing that the April 5 rain date is Easter, will move the rain date to Monday April 6) and the summer count ahead by two weeks (June 27/28).
I want to do this because I think over the two decades we’ve been doing these counts, spring has (generally) begun earlier and summer has heated up earlier as well. As a consequence, the peak flights of Olympia Marble seem to be about a week earlier than they had been, and early flights can come in mid-March. For Northern Metalmark, they now seem to begin flying in late June and a good part of the flight might be over by July 11. I would probably compromise and say July 3/4 if July 4 weren’t, well, July 4.
The earlier date in the spring is also likely to better capture some of the early azures like Northern and Spring, although less likely to pick up Silvery Blue and Cobweb Skipper (which for whatever reason *don’t* seem to be emerging earlier, possibly tied to their host plants). The earlier summer dates might give us hairstreaks that are usually missing by July 11.
Otherwise, the parameters remain the same. We’ll be logging our sightings into e-Butterfly instead of NABA, so they can be shared widely with the full lep community. And of course everyone is welcome to contribute sightings on iNaturalist, and I have created a project page just for butterflies in Green Ridge State Forest (see https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/butterflies-of-green-ridge-state-forest-md).
Please Save The Dates! April 4 (rain date April 6) for the spring count and June 27 (rain date June 28) for the summer count.
College Park, MD
preferred personal email: rborchelt |AT| gmail |DOT| com
http://leplog.wordpress.com
