Some interesting butterflying

[Steven Daniel]

Hi all,

I had unexpectedly productive butterflying recently at a powerline cut in Cold Spring Brook State Forest in southern St. Lawrence County, just outside the ‘blue line’ that designates Adirondack Park.  I stopped there as I suspected there could be crossline skippers there (one I see infrequently here) but didn’t expect such an overall bounty.  I  stopped briefly late Monday afternoon, and was surprised at the variety and numbers.  I returned on Tuesday for a couple of hours, and had 29 species at that time.  The key, I think, were a couple of large patches of spreading dogbane, which were super attractive to most everything.

It turned out to be extraordinarily good for numbers and diversity - and great practice for grass skippers.  I ended with 29 species in a couple of hours, of which 11 were grass skippers, including species that  I don’t see a lot of, such as  dion (6), crossline (3), and even a couple of mulberry wings.  Nymphalids were good as well, with at least 8 aphrodite fritillaries.

I saw no crescents or hairstreaks.   I posted some butterfly pics from those two visits on INat here.  Joan Zeller returned the following day and found much of what I had seen the previous day, and added coral hairstreak, as well as crescents.  

Yesterday I went with a friend to Hitchins Pond bog near Tupper Lake to scout an upcoming field trip there for the New York Flora Association.  Besides a green comma, always nice to see, the biggest lep surprise were 5 species that were nectaring at white-fringed orchis, Platanthera blephariglottis.   That species grows in some acid bogs, but I have never really noticed butterfly pollinators on it.  Here are pics of the butterfly species I was able to photograph that were nectaring on it.  If you look closely at the pic of the Atlantis frit, as well as the female dun skipper - you will see pollinia of the the white-fringed orchis stuck to their heads.   I thought that was very cool.

Steven Daniel

Edwards, NY