Butterfly Transect...2017 Update

I haven't been posting weekly butterfly reports from the Brukner Nature Center Butterfly Transect because we haven't been seeing many butterflies.  One week we saw NONE.  That was a disappointing walk.

I looked through the statistical results from 2016 this morning.  July is usually a good month for butterflies so maybe next week we will see more.

We walked on July 9.  Ruth thought she saw an American Snout butterfly while she was waiting for the group to gather but we didn't see one on the walk.  When we don't see many butterflies we entertain ourselves by paying attention to other plants and animals.

Ruth found Monarch eggs on the Milkweed plants near the Interpretive Center so we know Monarchs have been around.  We found chewed leaves but no caterpillars.

Ruth found this as we headed toward the meadow...a crab spider with lunch.

We were almost in luck when we walked through the meadow.  I say "almost in luck" because we saw two dark swallowtails...one flying on our left and the other on our right.  Jim said he thought he got a photo of one of them.  When Ruth sends us a note about the next walk, she will let us know if she was able to determine the species.  We could have been seeing a Spicebush Swallowtail, a Pipevine Swallowtail or the dark female morph of the Tiger Swallowtail.

The butterflies, the few we saw, were not sitting but I found this...

I'll put it up on the Ohio Mothing Facebook page and see if someone can tell me what it is.

I took photos of a couple plants we have no names for.  This is the first one.

I have already posted the plant photos below to Ohio Wildflowers.  We were fairly sure the plant was in the same family as Queen Anne's Lace.  We were right.  Helpful folks identified it as Japanese Hedge Parsley.  Our area must be perfect for it.  There is a lot of it at Charleston Falls as well as at Brukner.

Along the walk we saw a few Red Admirals but none were close enough for photos until we started along the drive back to the Interpretative Center.

We saw a Summer Azure sitting for a picture.

We also saw at least one Eastern Tailed Blue.

There were Cabbage Whites flying here and there as we walked...not many considering how numerous they can be.

One dragonfly posed for us.

And a doe walked out into the soybean field on the other side of the fence.