Recent sightings

from about 1 to 2 pm; sunny, 70s; zabs were all females; there were clouds of sachems in this yard and the number here is conservative; also seen: monarch cat and about 6 buckeye cats on snap dragons

Primarily birding in the park today but did spend some time in the early afternoon checking out the gardens. 7:25 am to 2 pm.

[Superb list for Burlington County in mid-October. jc]

Obs. made from 3:15 to 4:15. Full sun and mid 70's. small amounts of Frost Aster & Camphor-weed were the only nectar sources. Dun Skipper well worn. Summer Azure fresh.

Ocola returned today. Both Fiery Skippers were females.

Sunny, 70 degrees. Still nectar. Sedum being the main supply. 6 mph west winds. I was out doing some fall cleanup and watching the butterflies. I am still amazed at the numbers and variety this late.

11:30- 1:15, sun and clouds; etbs fresh

Minimal observations here today. My eye caught the unique shape of an Ocola Skipper nectaring on Buddleia. It quickly moved onto a hanging basket of Lantana, difficult to get to for an image. Managed a few noisy highly cropped images. First Ocola here this year and the 7th year in the last 8 that I have seen the sp. here.

9-12pm, sightings while birding;12-1 joined Sandra at the butterfly garden/planted strip. Sunny and into the low 70s. Worn streaky skipper we were fairly sure a swarthy but seems late. The tall Verbena bonariensis had all the grass skippers. Photos are Sandra's of the ocola and dun.

[Our late date for swarthy is Oct 30 (2016). jc]

Observations made 3:30-4:00. I was surprised to see a fresh looking spicebush st. There were at least a 1000 tree swallows flying over the impoundments.

Two weeks since my last visit here. Still a fair amount of White Snakeroot. Good diversity but numbers much smaller than two weeks ago. Had all three of the possible Hairstreaks in a 20 sq. ft patch of W.Snakeroot. Both anglewings quickly got away from me. Destroyed at least 12 more Spotted Lanternflies on two Alianthus trees. Obs, made between 1 & 2:45, part sun calm and close to 70 degrees.

Very little activity this past week.

Another good day in the yard with diversity and slightly increased numbers included fresh Red Admirals, American Ladies and Monarchs. Temps low 70's, ~8 MPH wind, sunny. Clouded Skipper in good condition seen. I took images of it and many other butterflies today but when I went to d/l the memory card tonight I had never placed it back in the camera yesterday. Hopefully, it'll be around again tomorrow. I have one image from another camera that shows Eastern Comma, Red Admiral and Question Mark on a combination of peaches and bananas. I was surprised to see the QM was so much larger the EC.

Very little activity today in the meadow.

I am lucky to still have good amount of nectar in my yard as I have watered the gardens all summer. Temp's about 67-68, partly cloudy with sun most of the morning & early PM, winds about 12 MPH. Had good day but all over butterfly numbers down though species count still at 15. No Ocola Skipper or Red-banded Hairstreak but picked up Variegated Fritillary and Orange Sulphur. Eastern Comma again in the yard but this looks more runty. Caterpillars and pupa's continue.

Vegetable garden plots–65 degrees and dense cloud cover, but near 1 pm, sun came out and the frost asters had all the activity.

Sun and 55 degrees at 8:30 am– so surprised to have a pearl crescent as haven't had any activity this last week. two monarch cats, but one not looking good. Four black ST chrysalises that will overwinter at this point.

Mostly sunny. Yea! 66 degrees, 7 to 13 mph north winds. It was cloudy in the early morning.

I was delighted to see sun, temp's to the low 70's and winds decreased to about 10 MPH today after 2 days of cold, gray, windy weather. I thought there would be no butterflies at all. Observations were done throughout the afternoon as I worked in the gardens. There were clouds of mixed skippers in front and back gardens >50 in all. I was also happy to have 15 flying species, with Monarch, Black Swallowtail and Common Buckeye caterpillars. In addition, there are BS, CB, Red-spotted Purple and Spicebush Swallowtail pupa in the yard. I did get photo documentation of all species.

[Wonderful mix of species so late in the year. Interesting that we have only two photos of eastern comma since 9-1-19 – both by you in your yard, Sept 10 and Oct 10. jc]

Late morning visit. Sunny and beautiful. Very low numbers of butterflies present now as the nectar sources have extensively died off.

The Clouded Skipper along the dead end path persists and a pair of Little Yellows were a nice find too.

[Good vagrant finds, SG! jc]

At work today. The Snout was in the woods on the Tat Starr trail.

Mottled gray color, long thorax (in proportion to abdomen), and short useless wings suggest this is a female Carolina mantis, the native species much harder to find in our yard than Chinese mantis.

Biked the loop at 3:15- 4:00; full sun and blowing a gale. Plenty of asters along the dikes that look promising but without bins and the wind flattening the plants it was hard to tell what was out there. The two sulphurs were together and were runts. Little doubt that the anglewing was a comma.

A quick walk through at 3:00. The .2" of rain yesterday gets the total here up to about 2.2" since August 1.

Highlight is having 2 Long-tailed Skippers and one actually has some tail left. The other has been here for over a week. Due to company yard survey finished early

The butterfly was not found after we were ready with cameras.

[A frustration too many of us have known! jc]

Sunny, windy, mid 70's - 13-15 MPH keeping everything fairly low. Sachem & Fiery Skippers are my most common butterfly at this time and they are still all over front and back. Surprised to still have 19 species flying plus 4 species of pupa along with CB and BS caterpillars.

Smith's Woods butterfly garden only, 2:40-3:20pm
80 degrees but very windy
11 black swallowtail caterpillars
Ocola skipper was a first time sighting for this location.

[Good to see! jc]

A not-so-good photo of a sleepy orange but the butterfly did not wait around for me to get a good focus.

[Nice find, CC! This is our first photograph and second report ever for sleepy orange in BUR – following Tom Bailey's find at Palmyra Cove on 9-28-19. We had no previous records of the species in BUR Co, nor did Jim Springer when he compiled his excellent state map for the species on the North Jersey Butterfly website. A significant record! jc]

Another Sleepy. And the Long-tailed Skipper continues. Yet the bug of the day is a Pearl Crescent that just won't quit. Have to admire that!

[And the Aaron's breaks our latest date ever for the species – previously 10-6-16. jc]

Warm, but overcast.
My No-tailed Skipper continues and nectars only on my Salvia greggii. Monarch and Buckeye numbers have crashed in the past 2 days

Long Tailed Skipper.

[Good find, C.R! jc]

Windy ~ 13 MPH, sun off and on temps mid 60's. Bugs move in and out of the shelter of the plants depending on whether the sun is out. Cloudy Skipper continues. One and possibly 2 Common Checkered Skippers here (1 front garden looked F and back garden looked more M and fringe at edge looks different but was it a trick of light?) I do have malva here which is a host plant. First time they have been here twice in one season that I have seen them.

Sunny but only reached 63 today. Activity light.

Early afternoon observations.

19 (adult) species three better than our previous best October yard count (16, 10/5/12). Also one black swallowtail cat. (Half a dozen monarch cats continue).

Coming back from Beach Plum Farm I decided to have a quick look around my yard. Sunny but windy here along the bay. Looked at the butterflies on the berm first. Lots of skippers low down close to the plants. Went to the center garden and saw a dark bug that was flying. Waited til it settled on Blue Rhea Salvia. Got a few ID Photos before it flew but returned several times. Lastly on the Miss Huff Lantana. I was sure it was either a Zabulon or a Clouded Skipper. Clouded it was. #45 species for this yard for 2019 and #55 species overall. Looking forward to a few more species to stop by.

Still have many buckeye caterpillar on snapdragons. Plus Black Swallowtail and Monarch cats on their host plants. I also have chrysalis from Spicebush Swallowtail, BS, CB, and Red-spotted Purple. (front yard not included in numbers)

[Congratulations on a new species for the year and yard, B.P. And it's a good one indeed – and looks as fresh as JM's. Any chance it followed your car from Beach Plum Farm ;-) jc]

At JM's urging I went over to Beach Plum Farm to see the Clouded Skipper but nary a sighting.

Upper 60's, sunny and windy. Barb and I spent a couple of lovely hours at the Point watching a steady flow of hawks and falcons. Afterwards, at her urging, we went to BP Farm in W. CM for a sandwich. Having never been there, I was surprised when I found out that with each sandwich comes a side choice of long-tailed sk or clouded sk. Barb and I had one of each.

[Good finds, not counting the sandwiches. These are our first clouded skippers since Sept 29 and in a different spot – also one photo'd looks fresh, suggesting this year's vagrant flight might not be over for the year. Our late date for the species is Nov 3 (2008) found by Will Kerling at Leamings Run, CMY. jc]

Good day in the Garden. A Long-tailed Skipper. 2nd for the season, and a Sleepy Orange. The Sleepy stopped on the Senna for awhile…..All the butterflies were nectaring on the Salvia greggii.

[Still more evidence that sleepy orange could be breeding in CMY after many years of being seen there only sporadically. jc]

During guided nature walk from 9-11:30am.

Lots of caterpillars crossing the trail, including Buckeye, Milkweed Tussock moth, and both species of wooly bears. Winds were sustained at 15 mph and gusting to at least 30 mph or more which kept the butterflies and dragonflies hunkered down and out of sight.

11:45-12pm Breezy, overcast and spritzing, 68 degrees.

One Monarch high over yard heading south, while second one spending time in garden. Taking in their beauty while the season wanes.

Obs. made mostly after 5 p.m. Pat photographed our first Variegated Fritillary in the garden this year.

A quick look at a very small amount of Frost Aster yielded a female Fiery Skipper.

Sunny, warm and little wind. Pleased to have #44 species for 2019 in the yard - Common-checkered Skipper. Good number of Monarchs with 25 tagged here on 10/1. Red -spotted Purple is into chrysalis. Butterflies not counted just enjoyed.

Took a walk around the preserve after finishing the day's project. Cutting across the neighbors' property to get to the south field I noticed that the barnyard was covered in frost Asters. I thought goats ate everything. Looking from outside the fence I could see lots of Checkered Skippers. I went in to try and get a quick count but the goats wouldn't leave me alone. There was a lot more Checkered Skippers than I put on the list. The Sleepy Orange was the reddish winter form. Good looking bug.

[Be careful out there, Brian ;-) We need you! jc]

12:10PM-12:50PM

Did my first October check of the colony today. Very hot and humid, but active none-the-less.

Counts are from Dix WMA and along Schoolhouse Road for both colonies in existence now.