Blue-Headed Blackbird: June 2011

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Great Spangled Fritillaries, Egret & Blue Herons

Burrage Pond used to be a cranberry bog that was turned into a wildlife management area by Massachusetts. It is a good place to see birds like Song Sparrows, Field Sparrows, Red-Winged Blackbirds, and Great Blue Herons, which are almost always present. On Tuesday I was able to stop by in the morning, and I explored more of the area than I have before, which is deceptively large. I encountered my first Brown Thrashers of the year, which is long overdue, and also saw my first Belted Kingfisher.

I think these are empty Common Snapping Turtle eggs

I counted 19 Tree Swallows perched on telephone wires, in addition to 5+ flying around in the area. I think that most if not all the ones perched on the telephone wires were juveniles because most stayed perched for the 5 minutes or so that I was watching, and a few adults brought food to some of them.

View of Burrage Pond

View of one of the 2 lakes

I always see Great Blue Herons here, and this day I saw at least 4, and possibly as many as 6, including one that was struggling to eat a fairly large fish. I was somewhat surprised to find a Great Egret in one of the former irrigation channels, and I flushed him/her 3 times causing him to fly further down the channel. Didn't have much of a choice, only one path on that side.

Great Egret flying away from me

Great Egret

There were only a few dragonflies today, which was a little surprising, but most of them were ones that never land, so no photos of them.

Eastern Pondhawk on turtle eggs

Widow Skimmer female

As I was heading towards the exit to leave, I saw a huge orange butterfly, which then perched on these purple flowers to sip nectar. I then saw another, and another, and another. 6 of them. I knew just by their shear sized (clearly bigger than a Monarch or Viceroy, possibly as big as a Swallowtail) that they must have been Great Spangled Fritillaries. They certainly lived up to their name, they're huge! When I got home I confirmed that they are indeed Great Spangled and not Atlantis or Aphrodite Fritillaries.

3 Great Spangled Fritillaries

Great Spangled Fritillary

Burrage Pond solidified itself as a great place to visit in the summer, not just in the fall. I'll certainly be posting more pictures from there in the near future.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Moth season underway

When I'm very busy with work and am prevented from going out birdwatching like the last two months, the moths are the ones that bail me out, and they've started to come out in full force the last few weeks. So far I haven't seen very many new species for me, but the season is just getting under way. Many of the moths that I've seen so far are some of the very recognizable ones I saw several times last year. So here are the moths:

Toothed Brown Carpet

Pink-Barred Pseudeustrotia - what a mouthful

Porcelain Gray, not a very showy moth

Pale-Marked Angle, also not showy

Brown Bark Carpet

Pale-Marked Angle & Brown Bark Carpet

Green Pug - these have been out consistently for several weeks now

One-Spotted Variant, usually one or two show up every night

Grape Leaffolder species pair (there's two very closely related species that look exactly the same, in the genus Desmia, so bugguide.net calls them a species pair

Sharp-Angled Carpet

Another picture of a Sharp-Angled Carpet

Finally! A really cool moth: the Wavy-Lined Emerald

Yellow-Fringed Dolichomia

Lesser Maple Spanworm, first seen on 6/19 and so far every non-rainy night since. They've only maxed out at 7 so far this year, but one night last summer I counted 42!

First Blackberry Looper of the year, one that seemed to show up often but unpredictably last year

Common Idia, a moth that I personally think looks pretty cool, though American Idias look cooler)

Butterflies of May & June

Haven't had much time to either go birdwatching or update the blog, but here are some photos of butterflies I've managed to take this year.

Horace's Duskywing

Juvenal's Duskywing

Dusted Skipper

American Copper

Gray Hairstreak with wings open

Gray Hairstreak

Viceroy

Virginian Tiger Moth

The next 3 butterflies were pretty wary and wouldn't allow me to get near them to get a good picture. These pictures are uncropped.

Red-Spotted Purple

Spicebush Swallowtail

Question Mark

Little Wood Satyr

Hopefully I will be able to go out more during July. The birds might not be easy to find in July, but the Butterflies and Dragonflies are more numerous in July.