Backyard Butterfly: Common Wood Nymph

You never know what you'll find when it comes to nature. Even just a 5 minute walk around my house can yield a species that I have not seen before. Today that species is the butterfly known as the Common Wood Nymph, the only species of Wood Nymph that occurs in Massachusetts. Common Wood Nymphs are closely related to three species that I have become very familiar with in the last 2 years: Little Wood Satyrs, and Appalachian and Eyed Browns. Enjoy the photos.

Common Wood Nymph

Common Wood Nymph

Common Wood Nymph

Common Wood Nymph, with wings open

What will I find in my yard next?

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

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.

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

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.

Semester over, rains begin

Now that the college semester is over, I was hoping to go birdwatching several times this week all over southeastern Mass, especially at Plymouth Beach and World's End in Hingham. Unfortunately the weather has not cooperated, so here is a selection of photos I managed to take during the few times I was able to go out during the hectic end of the semester. As always, click the pictures to see the larger version.

One of the biggest surprises of my first full year of naturewatching last year was that I did not see a single salamander. Determined to put an end to that, in late April I went outside with my trusty flashlight and camera on a misty cool night, desperately hoping to see salamanders and maybe a Ring-necked Snake. Little did I know last year that there were indeed salamanders right under my nose in my own backyard.

The first night I found 3 Red-backed Salamanders, and found 2 the following night. They were surprisingly easy to spot in the open, but disappeared under the clovers and grass with ease. It's a little alarming how well they are hidden; I'm now worried about stepping on them whenever I walk in my backyard, especially on misty/rainy nights. I tried to use the flash as little as possible so as not to blind them.

In early may I went to Ames Nowell State Park again, as well as Oak Knoll Wildlife Sanctuary several times (more on those trips later), where I managed to get a picture of two Spring Azures mating. Not sure about the exact taxonomy of these two (is anybody?) but I believe that they are two different forms. 

Spring Azures mating

In addition to about 15 Spring Azures, I also saw 3 of the smaller Eastern Tailed-Blues, one of which cooperated with me in the photo department.

Eastern Tailed-Blue with wings open

Eastern Tailed-Blue

None of the Cabbage Whites or sulphur butterflies that I've encountered have been even remotely cooperative. At both Ames Nowell and Oak Knoll, the dirt/leaf liter trails had many duskywing butterflies, which I have to say are some of the most skittish butterflies, or indeed any animal, that I have come across, possibly only losing to Seaside Dragonlet dragonflies in the skittishness contest. However, patience did pull off on one occasion:

Juvenal's Duskywing

On the bugguide.net page for Horace's Duskywing, it says that "Juvenal's Duskywing has gray scaling on the forewing" which fits this individual, so I'm fairly certain that above butterfly is a Juvenal's Duskywing.

Here's hoping the weather gets better so I'll have much better pictures to share and adventures to tell about. 

Butterflies & Moths of 2010

For my second post I figured I would post pictures of butterflies and moths I saw in 2010. I didn't really figure out a good way to take photos of moths until around June, so most of these are from summer and fall 2010. All the following pictures were taken with my simple Kodak Easyshare camera and are uncropped. Enjoy :)

Baltimore Checkerspot

American Copper

Eyed Brown

Red-Spotted Purple, my favorite MA butterfly

Mourning Cloak

Striped Hairstreak

Appalachian Brown

Chalky Wave, Scopula purata, a very scarce moth

Eyed Brown with wings spread

Large Maple Spanworm

Black-Banded Owlet

Arched Hooktip

Clover Looper (Moth)

Clover Looper

Darling Underwing

Snowy Urola Moth

The Gem (Moth), female

Brown-Lined Owlet Moth, I know, a mediocre picture of a not-so-exciting moth, but this species has very little data on bugguide.net so I included it here

Wavy-Lined Emerald

The Gem & Brown-Lined Owlet Moth

Pearl Crescent at Ames Nowell State Park

Same individual as previous photo

Eastern Tailed-Blue

Cabbage White

American Lady

This year I will probably use a white sheet to try to attract moths, and someday soon I'll get a DSLR camera to take some much better pictures.