Tricks for ID of Harvester vs grass skipper?

[aer...@aol.com]

Hi all, 

I have several small orange butterflies, that fly seemingly endlessly, 

through our wetland and upland shrub edge vegetation here along our marsh trail in Pittsfield. 

They never land for identification making them end up, unfortunately, as 

unidentified butterflies for our Butterfly Transect route. 

I believe they are either Harvesters (we have several of them in those areas) 

or grass skippers (maybe Hobomok Skippers that are out here now.) 

Does anyone have any tips for "on-the-fly" identification 

to help with, at least, separating whether they are 

Harvesters or a skipper?

If I ever get some photos of some of them, my mystery will be solved. 

But, until then, if I knew what to watch for while they are in 

flight it would be helpful!

thanks,

Andrea Robbins

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[George DeWolf]

Hi Andrea,

I would welcome comments from others, as I’ve only observed Harvesters in the field on one occasion. However, I would think that the mere fact that you observed several individuals at the same location would make Harvester less likely. To my knowledge, they are not typically encountered in numbers greater than a few individuals at a single site on any given day.

George

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[Steve Mirick]

Jane I had a similar problem with our first Transect Route at Odiorne.  These endlessly wandering butterflies are a pain in the butt!!!!  Why don't they just land!!!! :-)  

FOR US AT ODIORNE....I believe these are all (or almost all) Hobomok Skippers.  We ended up putting them down as Hobomok/Zabulon Skippers (Lon sp.).  After the transect ended, we finally caught up with about 4 and three of them were Hobomok.....but then we found a female Zabulon  laying an egg so Zabulons are out (at least in small numbers) on the seacoast.

After a while, I think you can get used to flight style and habitat to at least narrow down the choices.  Big orange skipper bouncing around in wet forests low in grasses at this date, I think Hobomok is a good bet.  Certainly a fairly common June skipper around the State.

I've only seen more than one Harvester once when we had two tangling.  Mostly I've seen them a bit higher than I associate with Hobomok except when mud puddling.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=81729&user_id=stevemirick&verifiable=any

- Steve

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[Steve Mirick]