Butterfly Count Scouting

Tis the season for butterfly counts. While there are a number in the area, the only one I participate in is the Rondeau area one, coming up this weekend. So in order to get in the mood, I spent a bit of time last Monday at Rondeau checking out one of the most prolific patches for butterflies in the park. It is actually an old dump site, known as the Dillon Dump. With the high water this year, and a tree that had come down across the entrance to the trail leading to the dump, I don't believe anyone had been in there for weeks, possibly not for months. I talked with some of the park staff ahead of time, and one or more of the maintenance crew cleared a pathway at the entrance through the fallen tree limbs making access possible (thanks, Jon!).

One of the things that this site has going for it is that it is an opening of about one hectare, completely surrounded by deciduous woodland and swamp, and the main plant there right now is Common Milkweed. Fortunately it is in peak flowering condition right now. There must be upwards of 2000 plants, and with each of them having several flower heads and each head having at least several dozen individual flowers, there may be 10,000 or more individual flowers for pollinating insects to feast on. Butterflies were fairly abundant, not surprisingly. I spent about an hour there in the sweltering heat and came up with 14 species of butterfly. I'm sure there were others. There wasn't anything unexpected, but with the butterfly season to date seeming to be a little behind time, it was nice to see this diversity in one location.

I managed to get photos of the following species. There were Monarchs a-plenty, not surprisingly.

A couple of Banded Hairstreaks were nice.

Eastern Comma

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Hobomok Skipper

Pearl Crescent

Question Mark

Silver-spotted Skipper

Little Wood-Satyr

There were a few that I didn't get photos of, including Summer Azure, Red Admiral, Tawny-edged Skipper and Northern Broken Dash, as well as a couple of skippers that skipped away too fast to get any kind of decent look at. And there were likely others that I didn't see, but might have if I stuck around long enough. I did get a Viceroy a bit later on.

There were lots of dragonflies as well, although almost all of them were of the Meadowhawk type. I just wasn't sure which one, as the three possible ones are often difficult to distinguish in the field.

 There were lots of damselflies as well, but I only tried to get photos of this one, a type of Spreadwing in the Lestes genus.

Hopefully the upcoming butterfly count will have a decent result, but time will tell. However unless someone wants to venture out the officially closed Marsh Trail, a significant part of the count area will not be covered. This next photo shows the north end of the trail, at a location where hundreds of birders stood patiently last September and October waiting for the famous Great Kiskadee to show itself. Things have changed considerably, due to the record high water levels of the lakes; hence the closure of the trail.

I also had some things to do in the vicinity of Clear Creek Forest Provincial Park, so I took a bit of time to look for butterflies and dragonflies around the open area and ponds at the north side of the park. The butterflies were much the same as what I got at Rondeau earlier, but with less diversity. The dragonflies were plentiful though. Again, nothing really unexpected but it was nice to have so many to choose from in such a small area.

Blue Dasher

Calico Pennant

Common Whitetail

Twelve-spotted Skimmer

Widow Skimmer

 There were quite a few Eastern Pondhawks, including young males with their thorax still transitioning from green to pale blue.

With all of the dragonflies around, it was no surprise to see the exuviae still clinging to the tops of dead stems, where the nymphs had climbed out of the water to subsequently emerge as adults.

Whilst on the watch for dragonflies, I noticed this Bronzed Tiger Beetle scurrying across the sandy edge of one of the ponds.

There were a couple of dragonfly types that just wouldn't land and so I never got a chance to identify them let alone photograph them. Maybe next time.