There are still butterflies!

It's been several months since my last post on this butterfly blog but I finally have an update for you faithful followers (just kidding, I'm pretty sure there are none!).

Anyway, here it is 9 November and I was surprised to see 5 species of butterflies here in central Iowa today!  Apparently the recent days of south winds and temps around 70 was enough to bring some back into the area (or stir them up from hibernation).  All were found in Polk County.  They were:

Common Buckeye - 1 at Lakeview Access
Orange/Clouded Sulphur - 10 throughout the day, many at Jester Park
Skipper species - 1 flew by quickly at Jester but I wasn't able to ID it
Mourning Cloak - 1 at Jester Park
Checkered White - 1 at Jester Park

According to the Butterflies of Iowa book, there had never been a November collection of a Common Buckeye or Checkered White in the state of Iowa.  However, I know very little about other record-late sightings.  I'm very curious if anyone else has seen these species this far north this late in the season.

That's all for now.

Lab bugs

I feel it's a letdown to have a post without pictures... but I'll have to overcome that because that's exactly what this post is!

This past Monday for our Restoration Ecology lab, we checked out a couple more prairie remnants here in Story County.  I didn't take my bins or camera but I did keep a mental note of the butterflies.  I recall:

Black Swallowtail
Orange/Clouded Sulphur
Cabbage White
Gray Hairstreak
Eastern Tailed-Blue
Pearl Crescent
Monarch
Viceroy
Common Buckeye
Common Checkered-Skipper
Fiery Skipper
Tawny-edged Skipper

With October a week and a half away, I'm wondering when I'll start to notice dwindling diversity here in central Iowa....

Loess Hills

Aaron Brees and I spent a morning over in the Loess Hills of western Iowa again on Sunday.  Conditions were quite windy which kept overall numbers seemingly lower than on previous trips.

We were lucky to stumble on a single LEONARD'S SKIPPER at one of our last stops...

       

Here is a spider preying on a TAWNY-EDGED SKIPPER:

If anyone out there has comments on this skipper, I'd appreciate input!  In person, I passed this off as a Tawny-edged Skipper but I'm not sure if the bold spots on the upperside is within range for those:

As with previous trips over to the Loess Hills, we didn't have much trouble finding SOUTHERN DOGFACES, including this one that (finally) perched for me:

And lastly, we were both struck by the contrasting pattern of this crescent.  Granted, I'm not very confident in ID'ing crescents only from the uppersides.  Anyone have any ideas?  Just a very contrasting Pearl?

Leonard's and more...

Aaron Brees and I spent this past Saturday (4 September) looking for butterflies in western Iowa, south of Council Bluffs.

For me, I was most interested in finding LEONARD'S SKIPPER which proved to not be exceedingly difficult (thanks to Aaron knowing the nectar source: blazing star).  What WAS rather difficult was getting a very cooperative one.  Alas, I came back with a random assortment of ID'able photos:

       

       

TAWNY-EDGED SKIPPERS came in a variety of looks.  Here is one:

Another one of the most common species was SACHEM.  Here is a female:

A "second-lifer" for me were the many REAKIRT'S BLUES that we found throughout the day.  Here is one on some goldenrod:

... and here it is with an EASTERN TAILED-BLUE for comparison:

One of the better finds of the day was this JUNIPER HAIRSTREAK, which was only my second-ever:

While on the theme of hairstreaks, I took a couple seconds to play with the common Gray Hairstreaks:

Not on my radar screen was this lone COMMON ROADSIDE-SKIPPER which turned out to be quite late for Iowa.  I only managed one picture but I believe it to be easily identifiable:

Another great find was yet another FUNEREAL DUSKYWING.  This is maybe the 8th or 9th state record for Iowa (all the previous records were found this summer as well!).  Here is a picture of our most recent:

Another second-lifer for me was SOUTHERN DOGFACE.  We saw several but I definitely failed in getting any decent photos of any.  Here is a feeble attempt:

Not much to say about this guy except that it's a RED-SPOTTED PURPLE and that I only took the picture because I was a little shutter-happy:

Come on people, focus on the butterfly, not the plant.  It's a WILD INDIGO DUSKYWING:

I only remember one REGAL FRITILLARY that day but this one actually sat down a couple times.  I'm sure Aaron got some better photos than this:

I'm not sure if this list is correct or not (and maybe Aaron will correct me), but here is what I remember seeing that day:

Eastern Tiger-Swallowtail
Black Swallowtail
Giant Swallowtail
Cabbage White
Orange Sulphur
Southern Dogface
Dainty Sulphur
Little Yellow
Gray Hairstreak
Juniper Hairstreak
Eastern Tailed-Blue
Reakirt's Blue
Variegated Fritillary
Regal Fritillary
Pearl Crescent
Gorgone Checkerspot
Polygonia Sp.
Mourning Cloak
Common Buckeye
Red-spotted Purple
Viceroy
Monarch
Common Wood-Nymph
Silver-spotted Skipper
Funereal Duskywing
Wild Indigo Duskywing
Common Checkered-Skipper
Fiery Skipper
Sachem
Least Skipper
Leonard's Skipper
Tawny-edged Skipper
Common Roadside-Skipper

~33 species

Although not butterflies, I snapped a couple shots of the VARIEGATED MEADOWHAWKS:

       

... and this RED SADDLEBAGS:

     

Lastly, we can get to things that aren't actually insects!  For example, I couldn't pass up this tree frog:

Buck/Fire/Peck

I can't believe it's been over a week since my last butterfly update.  I apologize...

I was happy today to find not one but three new butterflies for my "Yard List".  They were:

Common Buckeye

Fiery Skipper

Peck's Skipper

I wasn't really expecting PECK'S SKIPPER to show up here but alas, I noticed this guy fluttering around.  It even perched for a picture, maybe my new best for this species:

A couple seconds after that, a different skipper came in and harassed the Peck's... turned out to be my first FIERY SKIPPER for the yard.  Here it is as if it were asking "Hey, you don't happen to be a female Fiery Skipper, do you???"  The Peck's Skipper was having none of that:

Later after the Fiery Skipper gave up, I caught a glimpse of it from above:

Meadow Frit and others

I finally managed to get out of the house and check out some butterflies this weekend.  Location?  All of these came from Lucas County and Appanoose County, both in southern Iowa.

I was most pleased to finally find a MEADOW FRITILLARY at Colyn SWA in Lucas County.  Turns out, I probably ended the day with 5-7.  Here is one:

It wasn't very surprising that FIERY SKIPPERS were common throughout the day:

Now that I'm actually looking more carefully at the pictures (as I make this blog)... I wonder if this skipper might actually be a Sachem?  I don't have much experience with Sachems unfortunately.  Any thoughts?

I almost wanted to make the following butterflies into European Skippers (a bfly I have yet to see) but logic got the best of me and I accepted the fact that they were just the common LEAST SKIPPERS.  Apparently European Skippers don't fly this late in the season here.   

I absolutely loved the evening light while photographing various sulphurs & yellows at Sedan Bottoms.  I was amazed at how the yellow in these guys just seemed to pop out with the right light.  Here is a LITTLE YELLOW: 

Is the LITTLE YELLOW actually little?  Well, stick one of the giant sulphurs in front of it!

Overall, it was a fairly productive day for butterflies even though my target was actually finding birds.  Although I didn't keep track of what I saw, I'll put down the species I had and in order from most abundant to rarest (for the day):

Common Buckeye
Clouded/Orange Sulphur
Black Swallowtail
Eastern Tailed-Blue
Monarch
Pearl Crescent
Little Yellow
Fiery Skipper
Meadow Fritillary
Least Skipper
Viceroy
Eastern Tiger-Swallowtail
Painted Lady
Red Admiral

Cabbage White

Question Mark
Red-spotted Purple
Gray Hairstreak
Sachem?

The Sulphur from SE AZ

No takers on this sulphur?  Fine, I'll just have to make a fool of myself!!

But if you weren't around earlier... I took a picture of this sulphur while in southeast Arizona last August.  I initially tried ID'ing it but eventually gave up.

A couple features that stand out to me are the dark edges to the FW above (that we can see through the underside of the FW), and the rather blunt tail on the HW.

If I'm not mistaken, the only "tailed" members of this family present in SE Arizona would be:

Yellow Angled-Sulphur
Mexican Yellow
Boisduval's Yellow
Sleepy Orange
Tailed Orange

It's clearly not the large, greenish Yellow Angled-Sulphur, of that I'm sure!

Another thing to point out is the shape of the black that's on the FW above.  I don't see the classic "dogface" that would be present on all Mexican Yellows and male Boisduval's Yellow.

Sleepy Orange should surely have a deeper orange flush to the underside and more markings than this butterfly, right?  Also, all the pictures I've seen of Sleepy Oranges show a more blunt, rounded tail than our butterfly shows.

Likewise, I feel that Tailed Orange would be both a) oranger at this season and b) have a more blunt tail.

This leaves me with where I left off last time; confused!  Perhaps this is a worn female Boisduval's?  I feel that the picture in the Kaufman guide for Boisduval's shows a tail very similar to mine.

Any clues out there?

Fiery & Yellows

While below the dam at Saylorville earlier today, I noticed 10+ skippers bopping around an area of mowed grass.  Upon closer inspection, I found that they were FIERY SKIPPERS:  

For more info on where exactly I had them, see the below map:

View Fiery Skippers in a larger map

It was only last September that I saw my very first Fiery Skipper up at Jester Park (thanks Aaron).  The ones last September perched nicely with wings open though, something I didn't see today.  Here is one from last fall:  

Then later today near Jester Park, I noticed a swarm of smaller "sulphur things".  The first perched one I saw was this ratty individual.  I was certain it was a LITTLE YELLOW:

And yes, alas, I managed to find another less-ratty butterfly actually perched.  Clearly they were all LITTLE YELLOWS, probably 10-20 individuals:

Sulphur stumbling

I will admit, sometimes I stumble on a butterfly, try to ID it, get frustrated, and then leave it for a later time.  Well, that later time is now.  Anyone out there with any ideas about this sulphur I photographed in southeast Arizona early last August???  I clearly was overloaded with other, easier to ID, species!

Fritillary folly?

Sometimes I wonder why I venture into ID's that are way over my head.  Well, I don't mind making a fool of myself and I have to learn somehow, right?

With that in mind, I turn to a fritillary I photographed in the Black Hills of South Dakota last weekend.  Here are just a couple quick pictures:

Ok, I may as well start with just a list of "greater" fritillaries that my two books (I'm a beginner, remember?) show as occurring in western South Dakota.  I get:

Great Spangled Fritillary

Regal Fritillary

Coronis Fritillary

Aphrodite Fritillary

Atlantis Fritillary

Edward's Fritillary

Callippe Fritillary

Let's look at the eye color of our mystery butterfly:

If I dare to make the point that the eyes are NOT dull yellow-green, that excludes both Great Spangled and Aphrodite Fritillaries.  For example, here is a Great Spangled from Iowa:

That leaves us with:

Regal Fritillary

Coronis Fritillary

Atlantis Fritillary

Edward's Fritillary

Callippe Fritillary

For a lot of obvious reasons (I think), it's safe to say that this isn't a Regal Fritillary.  Namely the lack of a dark HW and darker black margins on the FW above.  Here is a Regal from Iowa for comparison :

Now we're stuck with:

Coronis Fritillary

Atlantis Fritillary

Edward's Fritillary

Callippe Fritillary

As you can see from the following picture, our mystery butterfly doesn't have a "strong green reflection" on the underside of the hindwing.  This should exclude Callippe; the population in Colorado has green HW disks whereas the more western populations get tougher.  The lack of this "green reflection" on the underside especially excludes Edwards':

Further narrowing down our possibilities, we're left with:

Coronis Fritillary

Atlantis Fritillary

I guess this is officially where I get very lost.  I'm not sure, but from what I can tell, Atlantis Fritillary is supposed to have fairly heavy black markings on the upperwing, including thicker hindwing margins and thicker, "swollen" wing veins.  I don't see this on our mystery fritillary:  

       

I also think the HW marginal spots are more rounded than tent-shaped, another point towards Coronis: 

Lastly, a couple other minor things make me lean towards Coronis as well.  First, Coronis is said to have a flight season of late-May through early-September.  Contrastingly, Atlantis is said to be "mostly" around in July (although there is a lot of slop to that).  Lastly, most range maps just put a dot in the Black Hills for Atlantis Fritillary whereas Coronis is shown to be more widely distributed in that part of the state.

Lastly, any thoughts?  I'd be very pleased if someone who knows these fritillaries better to correct me if I'm wrong.