Brukner Nature Center...Butterfly Transit Update, July 1, 2016

I have been lax in putting up Brukner Nature Center Butterfly Transit blogs for a number of reasons...partly due to rainy days and partly due to other activities that have come up.

The group is still plugging away.

We have had a couple nice finds...the first Least Skipper that has been recorded at Brukner (June 19), probably because no one has been looking for them and on June 24, a Banded Hairstreak.  We have seen Banded Hairstreaks other years but we don't see them often.

Least Skipper

Banded Hairstreak

Butterfly weed was found blooming on June 19...

and on June 24, Phil photographed this Great Spangled Fritillary on  a butterfly weed.

We have been finding caterpillars...

found on willow on June24.  No ID

This one was found on June 19.  I didn't go on that walk so I don't know what it is.

I learned a couple things, one thanks to the Ohio Butterfly site and the other thanks to the Ohio Wildflowers and Fauna site.

This is a moth I saw on June 24.  It is either a Virginia Ctenucha ( Ctenucha virginica) or a Yellow-collared scape moth (Cisseps fulvicollis).  To know positvely, I needed to get a photo of the thorax.  Maybe I'll see another one.

This is Enchanter's Nightshade.  It is widespread throughout the Brukner wet woods.  The plants with the tiny white flowers have always overwhelmed me.  There are lots of them this time of year and I never knew where to start looking in the field guides.  All the tiny flowers were too tiny for me to distinguish.