Butterfly count--Rondeau

 This past July 10 was the annual Rondeau area butterfly count. It is always something to look forward to, although we went into it with some trepidation this year. The hot, dry weather for most of the last month or so, which followed a cooler and wetter spring prior to that has, I think, played a bit of havoc with invertebrate populations. Certainly pollinating insects in general seem to be less abundant than what we normally expect, and butterflies are not as abundant either. Other parts of Ontario even here in the south seem to have been blessed with a bit more precipitation as of late, so hopefully the dearth of invertebrates in this immediate area is just a localized condition.

At any rate, I began my usual route, at the McGeachy Pond Trail, at about 9 a.m. As I walked and looked, I began to think that my next blog post will have to feature something other than butterflies! I walked to the far end and back over a period of about an hour, and came up with two butterflies, both of which were Cabbage Whites, and even those two were only noted on the return. 

Yikes! This was not going as hoped. It didn't help that the butterfly bush that was located at the residence at the far western end of this trail had died.

But I kept on, and went next to the Erieau Rail Trail. The first part was quite shaded, and there was more bird action than butterflies. I had things like a pair of Carolina Wrens, Downy Woodpecker, and a Warbling Vireo scolding me to get my attention.

At the observation platform, there were Barn Swallows building a nest under neath.

There were a few butterflies to be found, especially where there were patches of Catnip. For some reason, the patches of Common Milkweed or Canada Thistle were not as interesting to the butterflies that were around. Catnip was the plant to check out, as these Red Admirals would attest.

I explored other areas as well, including one that Steve, Keith and Jim and I always check out just west of Blenheim. It didn't disappoint with the usual mix of Wood Nymphs, Little Wood Satyrs, Eastern Tailed Blues and such.

I continued on my way and the other three covered more of their typical territory. We had decided that the local sewage lagoons, sometimes a real hotspot for butterflies, would not be worthwhile this year. The extreme dryness on and adjacent to the berms, and the recent mowing, left very little to attract butterflies, so why bother.

One of the spots that never fails, is along the B-Fit trail at the south side of Blenheim. There are a couple of large cells designed to hold excess water, and a walking trail goes around. At one point a landowner has established a nice garden mix of native and non-native wildflowers that always attract insects. Except for the time I was there this year. There is a mix of Purple Coneflower, Bee-Balm and even Butterfly Bush among others. But there was not a single butterfly to be seen when I was there. I mean, butterfly bush is supposed to be a guarantee! But not this time.

Fortunately it wasn't a complete waste of time, as the one cell had a lot of dogbane and Swamp Milkweed in it, and there were at least 6-7 Monarch butterflies flitting around there.

I also spent some time along a wide road allowance, which has a seldom used railway line along it, and part of it is adjacent to a wet woods. For the size of the area, it was the most productive part of my day. There were of course a multitude of both Orange and Clouded Sulphurs and Cabbage Whites,

There were also a few Azures. One used to be able to call them Summer Azures with a fair bit of confidence at this time of year. However in recent years, at least some expert lepidopterists have decided/discovered that it isn't quite as easy to separate the different azure/Celastrina types as once thought. Even putting them on iNaturalist as a Summer Azure, someone will eventually respond declaring they cannot be separated, and downgrade the observation to Celastrina sp. So they are just Azures for now. Such is the realm of taxonomy.

I was pleased with the number of hairstreaks visiting some of the milkweed patches. I had at least 6 Banded Hairstreaks in just a few minutes.

I had the occasional Delaware Skipper.....

....and I was a bit surprised to see at least 4 Dun Skippers. I think the wet woods adjacent to this site was definitely the reason for them, as they are not generally a common skipper in my experience.

Dun Skipper

Hobomok Skipper

Silver-spotted Skipper, one of the largest of the skipper group, was fairly numerous, with at least 7 at this location.

I had been at Rondeau a couple of days earlier, scouting around even though it wasn't my territory. I thought I was fortunate to have seen and photographed this next one, a Black Dash. I don't think it is commonly seen either, and I haven't heard what the final tally for butterflies was on this count, so maybe it will only be a 'Count Period' record.

I ended up with a mere 17 species of butterfly, a little lower than usual, but not all that surprising given the recent weather, the somewhat limited habitat variation and the way the day began. Monarch numbers were lower than usual, as I only had 16.

 

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Wings and colours on a butterfly count

It is more or less the peak of butterfly season, which is why most butterfly counts take place in July. I only participate in one, the Rondeau area butterfly count. Heat and humidity are not my idea of the time to do lots of field work. So why am I located here in the extreme southwestern part of Ontario, which is undoubtedly one of the worst places in Canada for those conditions these days? Good question, but that is a topic for another time. But I limit myself to the one butterfly count, and on occasion I have declined even that when the conditions are extreme.

Fortunately the couple of days before the Rondeau count as well as the day of, were some of the cooler days we had for awhile. Not cool, as they were still slightly above normal, but it was a relative cool.

I hadn't done a lot of looking for butterflies leading up to the count, as my focus in recent weeks have been on those other members of the lepidopterans, the moths which enables me to do field work at a slightly cooler time of day. So I ventured out to the park a day or so before the Rondeau count, to see what was happening and to brush up on whatever butterflies I could find.

There was lots of Bottlebrush Grass along the trails, its name obvious due to its shape.

Butterfly Milkweed was abundant along the open edges of the forest. But virtually no butterflies at the time I was there.

In the damper edges of the forest there were scattered clumps of this next wildflower, Fringed Loosestrife.

It is easily identified by its bright yellow, down facing flowers.

It gets the 'Fringed' part of its name due to the little hair-like fringes along the leaf stem.

Dragonflies, such as this meadowhawk species, like using it as a resting place.

I got a few butterflies over the course of my hike, but not many, which did not bode well for the upcoming count.

My area for the butterfly count is not in Rondeau, as others have it covered, but in various places in the Erieau and Blenheim areas. I usually start off on the McGeachy Pond trail, then head over to the Rail Trail before meeting up with Steve, Keith and Jim to check out a grassy/shrubby field closer to Blenheim where we usually get a good diversity. Then we split up again, and I check out some wide roadsides and railroad edges in hopes that the vegetation has not been cut and there are flowering plants attracting butterflies. I check out a few other places along the way. In general it isn't the best habitat for diversity or rarities, but it gets the count circle covered and adds to the overall numbers for the day.

When I started at McGeachy Pond, it was early enough that there hadn't been many others on the trail. Eastern Cottontails were scattered here and there, but quickly moved on when humans arrived.

And dragonflies.....the place was a flutter with them. I wasn't counting, but there must have been at least a thousand of them along this trail and the Rail Trail. The vast majority of them were Blue Dashers.

There were a few butterflies, but I only got about 7 species in the first hour or so. One of the highlights was this Question Mark, the only one of its kind I saw on the day.

Red Admirals were a little more plentiful.

I got a couple of these Monarch look-alikes, the Viceroy.

Cabbage Whites were quite abundant, as usual.

There used to be a nice Butterfly Bush at edge of the parking lot at the west end of the trail, which, if it was in flower, always had an excellent variety of butterflies. Unfortunately over the last couple of years it has died out for some reason. Maybe snow and ice effects in the winter, or high water in the last couple of years, or something else. Regardless, it is no longer there, so it makes this trail far less interesting for butterflies.

Being right along the pond/wetland, there were lots of Pickerelweed just coming into their prime.

There were actually quite a few flowering plants scattered along these two trails, but except for Common Milkweed, most were not native such as this Catnip....

....and Butter-and-eggs, which seemed a bit early in the season to see it in flower. I generally consider it a late summer bloomer.

Common Burdock was not common, but scattered.

Pokeweed was just starting to come into flower. It is a native species, and in a few weeks will be laden with luscious looking dark blue berries. But looks can be deceiving. While they are popular with birds, they are poisonous to some extent for humans.

I met up with the other three amigos at the grassy/shrubby field, which over the years has become much more shrubby and less hospitable for butterflies. Nevertheless, we did find some of the faithful ones, including lots of this Common Wood-nymph.

We only saw this single Little Wood-satyr.....

....and just this one Eastern Tailed Blue.

Probably the highlight, amongst the variety of butterflies we saw in this one location, was this Banded Hairstreak, the only hairstreak I saw all day, although the others had more success in their other area.

I continued on to the other places in my part of the territory. The most interesting place was along a wide section between a seldom used railroad and a forest, where some parts were wet to support things like Swamp Milkweed. It turned out that this milkweed was about in its prime, and certainly a popular flower for various invertebrate critters. Monarchs were at all of the places I covered on this count, but often were in flight only. The Swamp Milkweed here gave at least a few, a reason to rest and feed.

Clearly they had been here before, as this fairly large Monarch caterpillar on Swamp Milkweed attestst to.

A species I don't often get in my area is this next one, a Dun Skipper.

Another skipper, more to be expected in my area, was this next one, a Delaware Skipper.

There were other critters using the milkweed, including this pair of Banded Longhorn Beetles attempting to ensure another generation would be present.

There were several members of the Lepidopteran family around, but on the moth side of things. I saw at least a couple Nessus Sphinx moths, but did not get photos, as well as half a dozen of these Snowberry Clearwings where I had more success.

This Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle was burrowing into the flower head.

There were a few dragonflies as well. Nothing rare or even unexpected, but they gave a few photo ops such as this Widow Skimmer...

...this Black Saddlebags.....

....and this Common Whitetail.

This next wildflower is Climbing Prairie Rose. It is officially a Species At Risk, considered as Special Concern, in Ontario and Canada. It is most commonly found in parts of Essex County. Chatham-Kent has scattered populations, mostly in western C-K. There are a few populations in Lambton and Middlesex, but not much more than that. I had found this population during a butterfly count several years ago, and was glad to see that it is surviving, although a bit past its best on this day. Most flowers were wrinkled petals or none at all.

All in all it was probably a below average day for butterflies, at least for my area. The previous few weeks of heat and drought probably didn't help. I ended up with about 20 species overall, including the ones I saw in the shrubby/grassy field near Blenheim with the other three counters.

In case you didn't know, National Moth Week starts this weekend, and runs from July 18-26, so you can probably guess what I will be doing over these next few days! I'm already well behind in processing my moth photos from this season, but look forward to finding more new ones, and seeing some of the usual ones, so stay tuned!

Birds, bugs and butterflies

I've been roaming a bit lately, as the mood strikes, the weather cooperates and the opportunities arise. For example I got a message from a friend in the greater Mitchell's Bay area a short time ago indicating that the Cattle Egret that showed up periodically in the spring, had been around. My first attempt to see it was not very successful, due to the distance and heat haze. But my second attempt was quite a bit more rewarding.

A couple of days ago, Steve Charbonneau reported both a Red-necked Phalarope and a Wilson's Phalarope at the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons, among a dozen or so species of shorebirds. The Red-necked was reasonably cooperative, from a distance. The light was quite good so even with a lot of magnification and cropping, the results were satisfying. It is a first year bird.

The Wilson's Phalarope was not nearly as cooperative, as a raptor flew over and startled many of the shorebirds into flight. In spite of several of us on the look out for the Wilson's Phalarope, it has not been seen since. I only got a very brief look and no photos. This next photo is of a female I saw there earlier this year.

Wilson's Phalarope in between two Lesser Yellowlegs

I made it to Skunk's Misery for a few hours one day. The mosquitoes weren't as horrendous as they sometimes are, but they were fairly plentiful. Fortunately there were a few butterflies and other things to keep me distracted. I liked the way this Eastern Comma was posed.

 There were several Giant Swallowtails checking out various flowering plants, such as this Great Lobelia.

Azures were fairly common, but since the taxonomy is being revised, some of the butterfly experts refuse to call this one a Summer Azure, and just lump it in as a Celastrina, which is the genus. Regardless, some of these summer time ones are looking rather worn at this time of year.

Hackberry Emperors are not a sure thing, but certainly is a butterfly one hopes to find there. This one was perched fairly high up, so I just got this profile.

 There were a few skippers, such as this Northern Broken Dash. Some butterfly experts were reluctant to put a name on it, and I realize that the lack of detail given the back lit photo makes identifying skippers even more challenging than usual. A butterfly specialist on BugGuide called it a Northern Broken Dash, as I thought it was, but some specialists on iNaturalist were non-committal.

 There was a consensus on this next one as being a Dun Skipper.

There were other butterfly species, but none that I photographed.

While photographing some Boneset......

......I noticed this flower beetle at the lower left hand side of the plant.

Banded Longhorn Beetle (Typocerus velutinus)

Some other bugs I noted on some of my forays included the following:

Transverse Flower Fly

Northern Flatid Planthopper

Pelecinid Wasp

This next one doesn't have a common name that I have come across, so I just refer to it as a small, black-dotted green bug. It is a type of plant bug whose scientific name is Ilnacora stalii.