On the Trails of IES

Trail Report for June 27, 2007

90°F, hazy and breezy at 2:00 PM.
Mosquitos were hardly worth mentioning - either they're gone or I'm getting used to them.
The Little Wood-Satyr and European Skipper had peaked after the last report and were now ramping down in numbers.
The Butterflies & Habitats walk on June 23 was well attended by both people and butterflies.

In spite of a cool & windy morning beset with computer problems, some 25 participants had a great time on this short 2 hr walk.
We visited Gifford Gardens, three different meadows, and a wooded section.
The crowd pleaser was the Great Spangled Fritillary, a dozen of which we found in a sunny, sheltered patch of spreading dogbane in the back Old Hayfield.
A number of the unmistakable silver-spotted skipper were out there with them.
The full list was:
Tiger Swallowtail
Cabbage White
Great Spangled Fritillary
Red-spotted Purple
Little Wood-satyr
Common Ringlet
Silver-spotted skipper
European Skipper
Appalachian Brown and Least Skipper were seen later that day, too.

Just the other day, joggers pointed out, and a passerby identified, a most amazing thing: a rat snake in a hemlock tree! The book says some are good climbers, so perhaps it shouldn't be amazing.
Later that same day, almost as amazing - well, to me - was a Baltimore Checkerspot on the new concrete at the greenhouse.
Back to today, I revisited the Old Hayfield's Dogbane patch where I found the dainty Grapeleaf skeletonizer moth.
I noticed a little farther away a spectacular Coral Hairstreak. I was not the only one to notice...
You can just see the legs of a jumping spider at the left of the photo. As it crept closer for a shot at the butterfly, so did I, but for a shot of both. We ended up blaming each other, for the butterfly spooked and departed in a flash.
Much more cooperative was an Eastern Comma along the Sedge Meadow Trail.
As that trail ascended from the swamp, I noticed a garter snake. It looked a little flattend about the head and I wondered about it's health, but eventually it's head turned and a tongue came out to test the air.
It was only then as I stepped back that I noticed the sizeable scat on the next step up...
And its occupant, a Northern Pearly-eye.
Along the edge of the front Old Hayfield something un-haylike against the dark forground caught my eye.
It was a pair of Cabbage Whites mating.
They flew away in tandem, and I with their wedding photo.

I've been avoiding getting drawn into the dragonflies - just what I need: another hobby - but I remembered that the black & white stigma on the wings was diagnostic, and a book did worm it's way into my library... so I'll stick my neck out and say we had a male Spangled Skimmer at the edge of the pond.
The relatively well manored alien Deptford pink was blooming in the meadow above the Glen.
Back along the pond, elderberry was being probed for nectar by a Great spangled fritillary.
The mystery plant from another era was blooming by the bench along the limestone cobble.
At the end of the cobble, a meadow fritillary was on daisy fleabane.
It launched as I neared for a better shot, but when I had it in the viewfinder again, it had transformed into an American Lady!

56 Cabbage White

1 Clouded Sulphur

1 Coral Hairstreak

14 Great Spangled Fritillary

2 Meadow Fritillary

1 Eastern Comma

1 American Lady

1 Northern Pearly-eye

10 Little Wood-Satyr

3 Common Wood-Nymph

3 Silver-spotted Skipper

2 Least Skipper

30 European Skipper

2 Little Glassywing