Hot butterflies

Today my wife and I braved near 100 degrees weather, that's without the steam high humidity factored in, to count butterflies for the NABA annual butterfly count. We have been joining the Chippokes count in Virginia for the last several years. This year we were out with several others on Jamestown Island. The weather was quite oppressive (low overnight was around 80 and the heat index was forecast to reach at least 110) so we worked to shorten our day. Usually we are out for most of the day. But this time we started at 9:00 and planned to end by 12:30 before the heat took too much of a toll on us. For that reason, we split the route in two.
Luckily, the butterflies weren't as put off by the heat as the butterfliers. Our small group found 20 species in the three hours we were in the field. That's pretty close to past totals and included some excellent finds. At a marshy area with a few remaining blooms of pickerelweed, there were a lot of skippers including four species on one stalk.

 Nearby we found three gemmed satyrs. Very pretty and a first for my wife and myself. Unfortunately, none decided to pose for the camera.

At our next stop we bushwhacked through some grasses and flowers finding many more species including this female Zabulon skipper and Appalachian brown.

Zabulon skippers were the most numerous species we found. There were also many Palamedes Swallowtails and Silver-spotted skippers. At the end of the morning we met up with the other half of our sector at a small butterfly garden managed by the Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory. It was just outside our sector but offered a nice, central meet-up location. Here, I was able to photograph this grey hairstreak, a species we didn't see on the official count.

All in all, the good butterflies outweighed the oppressive heat. Although, we are really glad we ended early.