July 2020 Sightings

Finally a Monarch. Last year they were here late May. For ID of Appalachian Brown I used recent sightings photos on this site as guide to name this small, eyed, brown butterfly which perched most often with wings open. It flew very low near nut grass and sedge grasses that get into my grassy paths.

Not much blooming. All Butterflies were seen flying in the sedges and grasses.

One of the Black Swallowtail cats has gone to Chrysalis attached to Rue.

9 am- 1:30. Clouds, sun and some rain. Two different locations had all three hairstreaks. For the past few years almost all of the northern broken-dashes in this area are of the reddish variety.

[This is our first report of sootywings since May 27 and only our 4th report for the year. Oddly, our last and only report of checkered sk was also on May 27. Let's hope these broods produce more individuals than the first broods.-jm]

[This is only our 5th report of N. cloudywing in 2020 and our first photo of one. This is Dolores' second report which makes 3 of the 5 reports from CMCH. It has been an especially difficult year to separate N. cloudywing from S. cloudywing. -jm]

At first look I though I had a RBH on my fruit dish . It turned out to be a dime sized LW Satyr runt, likely the smallest that I have ever seen. Would not remain for an image. Also now finding red stage immature Spotted Lantern Flies. I am finding them mostly on Common Milkweed stems. Not good!

Obs. made from 1:30 to 3:40, 95 degrees with mostly hazy sun. Very dry here with most of the nectar dried up or past blooming. Activity way below normal for this location & time. Hackberry Emperor was a female, seen laying eggs on Hackberry. Found 2 Monarch cats.

A long morning walk in dry habitat and a 5 minute stop at the Tuckahoe river on my way home.

A brief mid-afternoon stop. Skipper numbers are educated estimates based on relative abundance.

My annual 4th of July trek to this forlorn location. The lone striped hs I saw was too close to get a photo, and as I backed up, poof, gone.

Just spent about 15 min. in the garden & surrounding fields around 4 p.m.. Again very dry, but a nice amount of Common Milkweed & dogbane with next to nothing on it. Monarch & Spicebush were in the garden.

Monarchs were mating. Black Swallowtail ovipositing on fennel.

[This is a lovely yard list for a slow start to the summer. -jm]

8-10 am pulling weeds in the garden; 10-12 pm walk to the river. 88 degrees at 10 am and very humid, 93 degrees at noon. 2 spicebush cats on sassafras seedling in the woods. Also a hummingbird clearwing moth around dogbane.

I see sootywings in my yard every year. On May 7 this year I watched one laying eggs on lamb's quarters. As many cats of many varieties are devoured in my yard I decided to take in a couple of eggs. Raising these cats was simple (lamb's quarters is an abundant weed here) and fun. The cats lived and inclosed in rolled leaves. They have been emerging this week giving me perfect views of these gorgeous little bug before I release them.

11:15 to 12:15. Sunny, hot, humid. 91 degrees. Monarch was a fly by. The others were nectaring on Pickerel Weed.

[Tom's three two-spotted sk's establish a new LOY date for our log. The previous record was 6/30/16. Well done! - jm]

This report is for 2 days 7-2,7-3-2020. Counts are reflective of a high count for one of the days not collective.
The 3 -spotted Cabbage White is interesting as the third dot is on the HW.

Early afternoon stop. Sunny and in the low to mid 90s.