February 2016 Sightings

Orange Sulphur was at Reineman. The Mourning Cloaks were in Bear Swamp, one on Ackley Road and the other on the RR tracks.

At 10:47 am, there were two Orange Sulphurs doing a low courtship dance - a few inches over the grass.

At 11:34 am, an Orange Sulphur emerged off the ground and after 12 minutes of flying and landing it flushed another Orange Sulphur which it courted to no avail.

An Orange Sulphur flew over the car and across Rte. 47 and another landed near the car in the field while checking for sulphurs.

Briefly landed twice but took off before I could get a photo. Ironically, I was clearing saplings
out of a meadow area to improve it for grasses/sedges/flowers for butterflies when he flew in
right where I was working!

Tom

Moderator note: This is our first comma of 2016 and our first report of the species since 12-5-15. It is also our second-earliest report ever (one day later than our earliest on 2-20-14). A sign of other reports of this species and/or questionmark to come?

I flushed one from a old road today and it flew up about 20 ft into a pine tree. I could see it well but only had my small point and shoot camera so I could not get a picture.

Moderator note: This sighting gives us three straight months when we have had at least one find of blueberry azure. A scan through our data indicates that we have had only two previous February reports in our nine years of logging, both in the very warm spring of 2012 – 2-23-12 on Beaver Dam Road (CMY) and 2-27-12 on Stockton College campus (ATL). Could 2016 bring us something like the early dates explosion of 2012?

Sunny and mid 40's; 11 am and again at 1:30 pm. More fun with sulfurs: I have been calling sulfurs with narrow bands like these "clouded." However, in the blurry photo, the narrow band is accompanied by an orange area. The over-all flight look is pale yellow, not orange. Today, there were as many as 6 flying at the same time (a weird look for February). If you have not read Jack's recent blogs on Colias, you might want to.

Stopped at field - 1:12 pm and within a minute, I saw three Orange Sulphurs in flight. It was 41 degrees and sunny.

Discovered a, very energetic, Mourning Cloak in the woods and it was a challenge to get images! This bug was quite beat up.

Went up this road in the middle of the afternoon. Flushed 2 fresh-appearing Mourning Cloaks off the road in the leaves along with 2 Eastern Commas. These were different butterflies than the earlier loop trip up High's Beach Road and down Gus's Beach Road.

My first-ever February butterfly in my yard. I have now observed butterflies in my yard in every month of the year (although not straight through, as I had no yard butterflies in Dec. 2015).

Found a fairly, fresh Eastern Comma flying along a swamp in the woods. It landed in the leaves to bask.

Sunny, 60 and windy. Spotted turtle and salamander larvae.

Pulled up to field at 3:03 pm and one minute later there was an Orange Sulphur flying about.

Moderator Note: this is our first report of this species for 2016 and gives us at least three years (of nine years logging) when we have evidence of snouts over-wintering as adults in South Jersey. In 2013 we had a report in January: 1-20-13 at Belleplain SF. In 2012 we had three reports in February (2/1, 2/17, 2/22) and eleven reports in March (several of multiple individuals). Almost all of these winter reports are from CMY Co – with two from CUM.