September 2019 Sightings

A flyby

Less than a half hour here in the garden area after 3:40 p.m. Part sun and 85. Garden overtaken with weeds, but still ample nectar, primarily Mistflower & some Late flowering thoroughwort.

A new Black Swallowtail cat discovered on recently purchased parsley plant. Possibly purchased with egg already attached. Also found a Monarch on Asclepias Tuberosa, the first one this year on this milkweed sp. Most this year have been using Common Milkweed with a few on Tropical.

5 mile hike mostly along the "Red" Trail from 9:15 am to 3 pm.

Walked a few patches of Salt-marsh Fleabane while birding today. The state is doing some good work at the impoundments. What was all Phragmite a few years ago is now good Butterfly habitat.

One of today's E.tigers was a dark form female.

Light rain prior to starting out, 10:30-11:45. 73 degrees; Hackberry emperor, RS purple, and pecks all on my car when I returned–salts on car– from earlier rain?

Incidental sightings. All were northbound.

A brief visit from 3:45-4:15. Observed a Clouded Sulphur ovipositing on red clover.

12-1:30, windy but 84 degrees. Nectar that was out of the wind would have a number of bugs.

Pale female cloudless ovipositing on partridge pea.

Two cloudless cats found, one of partridge pea; other a late instar on common milkweed. We are hoping it is searching for a place to pupate. We have never found a chrysalis here.

Also half a dozen monarch cats, all mid to late instars.

2:45- 4:45. Sunny and 80. The field Brian Johnson referred in our report of 8/8 has faded; however, the places with bloom were loaded with bflies. The tawny emperor is a new one for me at this location.

[Exciting find, Jackie! – our first long-tailed skipper of 2019. The only other reports in the state this year were two of single individuals (same individual?) in Mercer Meadows (Mercer Co) 8/9/19 and 8/11/19. Let's hope a few more are coming. jc]

2:20- 2:25. Sun came out again.

10:00- 12:15, sunny and 70's. First stop on a day-long scouting trip for upcoming NNJ NABA invasion in mid-September.

5:15- 5:40. Arrived home thinking it likely I would see Am. Coppers and saw 2. The 6 beach plum trees and the peach tree brought in a record number of red-spotted purples for this yard. The last new bug of the day was a Red-banded hs, which I had not thought about all day. Total number of species for the day was 41.

[Thank you, Jack, for the impressive one-man one-day-in-September survey of the Cape May peninsula. jc]

I rarely see Hackberry Emperors nectaring on flowers. I have observed Tawny Emperors more often on flowers. Found this H.Emperor tonight on Buddleia.

[Interesting observation, Dave. You have a "nose" for that species, it seems: 12 of our 16 finds of hackberry emp since Aug 1 have been by you. Chris H and Jennifer B are tied for 2nd with two finds each – and a lot of us ;-) are still hoping for our first of the year. jc]

1:00- 2:15. After all sun at LT, the Point was all cloud which definitely slowed things down.

Butterfly Garden
2-2:30

2 Monarch chrysalises, 2 tiger swallowtail chrysalises, 1 black swallowtail chrysalis. 6 monarch cats

A brief stop at the Zinnia garden here produced my FOY Ocola.

[Good find, Cynthia! Your is only our 3rd report of the species this year. North Jersey had a series of reports from the same powerline in New Providence (Union County) in mid-August –perhaps a single individual; and that's been it so far this year. jc]

Little Yellow in the same spot in which I saw it on Aug. 26 (intersection of Bike Path and the RR tracks).

Observation made after 5. This has been a good year throughout SJ for red-spotted purple. My property crushed its record for this species yesterday. My seven beach plum trees are the main attraction.

This White Admiral-type was photographed by Sue Bennett Canale today at Oak Pond in Winslow WMA. I don't have a lot of experience with this subspecies, but this one looks like it might be a cross. Interested what others think. Was cavorting with 3 Red-spotted Purples…

[Exciting find and photo! This is only our second sightings log report ever of this northern form of the red-spotted purple/white admiral complex. And it is our first photographed. Tom Bailey found our only other last year on June 30 in Palmyra Cove. (We also had a third photographed on 8-2-2012 added to our data retrospectively.) It is hard to find even in North Jersey where, like here, red-spotted is common.

[Vince points out correctly that there is a good chance this individual is not a "pure" white admiral. The two forms overlap over a large area in the northeastern US (from northern NJ to Canada) and mate w/each other so regularly that patterns show a wide mix of colors on many individuals. The RSP's more southern geographical range is thought to be limited (roughly) to the range of the pipevine swallowtail whose wing pattern it mimics – for protection from birds that have learned not to eat the poisonous swallowtail. (We also had a third photographed on 8-2-2012 added to our data retrospectively.)

["White admiral" types we see are in South Jersey are almost certainly not wanderers from the north.  Nor are they likely to be hybrids.  The most likely explanation seems to be that these are individuals showing "atavistic" (ancestral) traits.  Red-spotted purples apparently descended from white admirals as the ancestral population moved into areas occupied by pipevine swallowtails and developed Batesian mimicry.  (Red-spotted purples are protected from predators by their mimicry of the colors and patterns of pipevine swallowtails.)  The ancestral genes of white wing markings and other patterns can show themselves occasionally on red-spotted purples that have never been near "pure" white-admirals. jc]