The West Coast

After Arizona, we headed west into California and up into Oregon and Washington.  Although we didn't have a lot of time to work bugs, I took a lot of pictures of what I could find.

Starting in California, we had some luck with butterflies at the San Elijo Lagoon which is north of San Diego.  It was there that we saw:

Lorquin's Admiral:

Fatal Metalmark:

The MARINE BLUES continued to be abundant:

Gray Hairstreaks apparently occur here as well:

We eventually got up into Oregon for a quick trip through northward.  I pulled my camera out at a rest area along the interstate and came away with pictures of this COMMON RINGLET:

... and this PINE WHITE:

Later on that day, I ventured outside again for bflies and found this pair of SACHEMS:

I think it was the next day that we took a stroll near Eugene, Oregon and stumbled on things like this WESTERN TAILED-BLUE:

From what I can tell, WOODLAND SKIPPERS are perhaps the most abundant grass skipper during this season in Washington:

It's clear that this WESTERN TIGER-SWALLOWTAIL had seen better days:

We spent a brief day at Mount Rainier and saw things like this SILVER-BORDERED FRITILLARY:

There were a LOT of checkerspots/crescents around.  I'm not totally convinced that these four photos are all VARIABLE CHECKERSPOTS but a part of me thinks so.  Thoughts?

There were also some blues around up in the higher elevation including this MELISSA BLUE:

... and this BOISDUVAL'S BLUE:

I'll close with a butterfly in Sacramento that stumped me.  There aren't THAT many skippers possible here this time of year and with this butterfly being so worn, I wonder if it's just a SACHEM?

The next post will be devoted to some of the dragonflies/damselflies from our AZ/CA/OR/WA trip.  Stay tuned...

Second AZ post

I have become backlogged with bug photos from this summer.  Because of this, I might not insert maps for this post; I need to just catch up!  Anyway, this post is devoted to the second half of my Arizona butterfly pics.

We can start with sulphurs.  A common species in Arizona was the CLOUDLESS SULPHUR; this one was near Portal:

I only saw one hairstreak the whole time and I eventually came to the conclusion that it was a JUNIPER HAIRSTREAK.  Let me know if you think differently:

Moving to blues, this lifer WESTERN PYGMY-BLUE was at Willcox Lake in Arizona:

I didn't see many metalmarks but the one I did see was easily identified as an ARES METALMARK.  It was in Garden Canyon near Sawmill Canyon:

I was happy to stumble on this ELADA CHECKERSPOT, also a lifer, at Catalina State Park near Tucson:

I posted earlier about the BORDERED PATCHES we saw.  Well, they are one of the most variable species we have and now I know why.  This individual has no other colors but black and white:

Switching gears to anglewings, the only species I saw in Arizona was this SATYR COMMA at Ramsey Canyon Preserve:

A very common species on this trip was the ARIZONA SISTER.  We saw a wide range of wear on this species.  Here is a crisp one:

... and a really worn one:

A butterfly of the south/southwest is this type of emperor, known as an EMPRESS LEILIA.  This individual was at Catalina State Park:

Moving now to spread-wing skippers, Florida Canyon in the Santa Ritas had a lot of activity.  It was here that I found my lifer MOON-MARKED SKIPPERS:

There was also this individual that gave me a lot of issues with identifying it.  I settled on ACACIA SKIPPER but you might be able to convince me otherwise:

Even in Arizona it's easy to recognize the widespread SILVER-SPOTTED SKIPPER:

 In terms of grass skippers, this plain and simple ORANGE SKIPPERLING in Patagonia was a lifer:

Near a forested stream higher up in the Chiricahuas were many TAXILES SKIPPERS.  Here is a male;

The one species I was most happy to see on our entire trip happened in Garden Canyon.  With an extremely small world range, it is quite local and I was happy to see several MANY-SPOTTED SKIPPERLINGS:

My next post on this blog should be devoted to butterflies I found in California, Oregon, and Washington.  Stay tuned!

First post from AZ

I'm ashamed it has taken me this long to update my bug blog.  Hopefully I'll be more on top of things in days to come.

First and foremost, Ashley and I finished our stay in Iowa and because living in New York or Missouri didn't sound all that enticing, we decided to relocate to Arizona for a while.

Of course, I was eager to visit the southwest again for the chance of some new and exciting bugs.  Granted, I'm well behind in updating this blog so I can't post them all at once.  I'll start off slowly with things we were seeing in Arizona at first:

Anyone that has looked at bflies around Madera Canyon in the Santa Ritas know that GOLDEN-HEADED SCALLOPWINGS can be very common.  Our visits proved no exception:

I snapped a picture of this roadside-skipper in Madera Canyon and didn't really expect to be able to ID it.  A check of my books though and I decided it was probably an ELISSA ROADSIDE-SKIPPER.  Because this roadside-skipper has a small dot (not an hourglass-shaped dot) in the forewing cell (the dot nearest the bug's head), I believe that narrowed it down to either Elissa Roadside-Skipper or Texas Roadside-Skipper.  I didn't think the spots looked "creamy" enough to be Texas so I settled with Elissa.  Any thoughts?  Here's the only photo:

The BORDERED PATCHES were easy to identify as usual.  Here is a chewed-up individual:

Brees, you got an ID for me on this tiger beetle???

In terms of blues, CERAUNUS BLUES were pretty common:

However, the most common blue (and maybe most common butterfly) was the ubiquitous MARINE BLUE.  The identification of these was really simplified in Arizona where Cassius Blues don't occur (Cassius Blues are by far the most similar to Marine Blues).  Here is a typical Marine Blue at Proctor Rd:

I was surprised to see a fritillary at the Proctor Road area but alas, VARIEGATED FRITILLARIES ended up being somewhat common:

I spied this sootywing and for a moment or two, I tried desperately to make it into any other kind of sootywing other than COMMON SOOTYWING which I reluctantly settled on:

Another common species around Madera Canyon was the GOLDEN BANDED-SKIPPER.  They're really easy to identify!

I wasn't sure how easy the identification of this roadside-skipper was going to be but thankfully, it was straightforward.  These CASSUS ROADSIDE-SKIPPERS were actually quite different looking from other roadside-skippers:

Hey hey, this wasn't a butterfly.  Seeing tarantulas on roadways ended up being almost a daily occurrence.  I don't know what species this is and I was told that there are over a dozen species in Arizona so I gave up: