Monday, May 30, 2016

Butterflies at BHCL

Memorial Day was pretty rainy until mid afternoon when the sun finally broke through the clouds. There were small patches of blue sky.  It seemed ideal for a quick walk at Breakneck Hill Conservation Land.  I was hoping butterflies would be on the wing due to the weather conditions.



I believe this is a Long Dash

Black Swallowtail

Hobomok Skipper ??

Indigo Bunting

  
Common Speedwell

Little Wood Satyr

Dusted Skipper


Wild Geraniums

Northern Cloudywing

I was hanging around the wild geraniums for a while, looking for pollinators, setting up my tripod, etc.  The wild turkey was in the meadow behind the geraniums, a bit up the hill.  A little later, a White-Tailed Deer walked through that same area.  You can tell the property was quieter than normal because of the rainy day, because normally, I would think these types of wildlife would be scared off by the dog walkers.

Wild Turkey


Two Pearl Crescents on wild geranium
(the one on the right was trying to gain the attention of the one on the left)

Tree Swallow

Common Vetch

Garden Bird''s Foot Trefoil

Mouse-Ear Hawkweed

American Copper
(Note blue spots, which are not often found on this species)

Northern Flicker

American Painted Lady
(Thanks to Lucy M. for pointing out my erroneous ID)

I had just looked at this butterfly and taken this photo when I saw the above butterfly, and I assumed they were the same individual and stopped paying attention!  Oops!

American Lady

Spicebush Swallowtail
(way off in the distance, but identifiable)
It was flying around the Sassafrass!


Common Ringlet



There was a couple photographing something on the ground near the new pollinator garden, and the man was trying to move grass stems out of the way for the photo.  Surprise, surprise.  It was a Snapping Turtle.  Who knows from whence it came and which way it was heading, but it seemed a strange place to find one.

Snapping Turtle

Gray Catbird

1 comment:

  1. Great haul of butterflies! It is interesting that the American Copper, which we call the Small Copper here, has the blue spots. We have been looking carefully at them here and more than half of them have blue scales to some extent or other. They seem to be very variable, sometimes with only one blue scale on each rear wing. The one you have seen is exceptionally well marked.

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