December 2015 Sightings

Monarch with crumpled wings but alive. Five swallowtail caterpillars on fennel.

plus 5 Black Swallowtail cats

Dandelion in bloom

This late blooming chrysanthemum has been a magnet for bees and flies . But this morning look at this beauty it attracted! It was hard to ID from the top because I didn't see the white dot in the cell end. However, the bottom side clearly shows the white dot. And I had a second Am lady a little while later.

Drive by

Sunny, calm and 57 degrees. Photos taken with cell phone.

49 and sunny with dandelion and aster in bloom.

Moderator's Note: this is only our second December record for variegated frit in our eight years of logging. The only other is from 12-4-09: two worn individuals recorded by Will Kerling at the Rea Farm, CMY. Chip's good photo shows this individual looks in surprisingly sharp shape for the first week of December.

Observed 2 males and a female. Still a fair number of dandelions providing some nectar.

Photographed a very uncooperative Clouded Sulphur

on path behind dune, between State Park and SCMM. One of the Common Buckeyes was quite worn, as the photo shows. Another had a stunning rosy underside.

And now we have a December record of Eastern Comma. This is likely the same individual recorded here on 11/26.

Moderator's Note: Dave's comma find gives us our 15th December species for our eight years of logging, 2008-2015. Good going, Dave!

His red admiral at Riverwinds (report below) gives us our 8th adult species for the month (in just five days). During the very warm December of 2011 (one the warmest NJ Decembers ever recorded) we found 10 species – our current high count for the month. Could that record fall this year? (See the blog for the full list.)

I do not remember ever recording Common Buckeyes here in December. The sulphur image is reported as Clouded. In the field this was more convincing than the digital image. It could be a hybrid.

Two of the three Buckeyes appeared to be runts. Lost track of them and was unable to get any images of the runts.

More Sulphur activity today. Images are of Orange Sulphur & a Clouded in flight.

One of these Red Admirals is the same individual photographed yesterday.

With Jean Gutsmuth for the day. Little wind and made it to 55 degrees. Dandelion was the flower of the day.

35 total number of butterflies seen for the day!

Partly cloudy, 55 degrees.

50 and cloudy. My first December butterfly, despite spending time at lots of locations.

It was sunny, calm and barely 50 degrees. Found 2 Common Buckeyes - digital images of both.

Found 4 Orange Sulphurs even though it was chilly and barely 50 degrees.

Checked out area remnant vegetable farm fields and waste/service areas. Mostly cloudy, 55 degrees.

I only had time for onw stop today. The temp was 55 and only an hour of sun.