An extra colorful Eastern Tailed-blue

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I noticed something interesting while I was processing the 1300 photos taken by our team in our territory (inside the Concord Airport with permission, and the western and southern perimeter of the airport) during this year's Capital Area Butterfly Count (July 25, 2026). 

In amongst the 21 species of butterflies that we counted for the day, 

I discovered an Eastern Tailed-blue that had an extra amount of coloration 

that seemed far beyond what is typical for that species. 

Here is a picture of it: 

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/386369883

This Eastern Tailed-blue has yellow markings, in the sub-marginal spot band, 

that extend across both the hind wing and part of the forewing, rather than just the typical few yellow marking on the dorsal hindwing seen on most specimens. 

To compare just how unusual it was, I looked at the 830+ other observations 

of Eastern Tailed-blue for New Hampshire on iNaturalist. 

Out of those 830+, I found only a handful (~15) that showed some yellow 

onto the forewing.

Anyway!  It appears to be an extra-colorful variation of Eastern Tailed-blue!

Here are our totals for the count: 

CONCORD AIRPORT, WESTERN AND SOUTHERN PERIMETER

Midsummer Tiger Swallowtail 1, 

Azure Sp, 

Brown sp (briefly on dash inside car with George) 1, 

Red-spotted Purple hybrid 1, 

Common Wood-nymph 6, 

Clouded Sulphur 2, 

Orange Sulphur 1, 

American Copper 12, 

Pearl Crescent 1, 

Wild Indigo Duskywing 8, 

Horace's Duskywing 2, 

Coral Hairstreak 7, 

Gray Hairstreak 6, 

Edward's Hairstreak 1, 

Karner Blue 1, 

Eastern Tailed-blue 2, 

Silver-spotted Skipper 5, 

Dun Skipper 6, 

Northern Broken-dash 6, 

Little Glassywing 1

CONCORD AIRPORT INSIDE (fields above the runways

with permission)

Monarch 2, 

American Copper 21, 

Wild Indigo Duskywing 2, 

Eastern Tailed-blue 13, 

Clouded Sulphur 4, 

Orange Sulphur 2, 

Karner Blue 9, 

Coral Hairstreak 11, 

Gray Hairstreak 12, 

Northern Broken-dash 1

Andrea and George Robbins

 

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