Busy Morning

 This morning was a busy morning at the bird feeder. It is cold, just above freezing and not expecting to get any warmer today, but sunny. Around 9:00 the birds started showing up and we had a wide variety and several of the most beautiful ones we have were putting on quite the show. in about thirty minutes we had 22 species including four species of woodpeckers, several sparrow species, three warblers, and lost tanager. My wife first saw the Western Tanager early this week. I was working at the time and missed the first sighting. And then the second and even third sighting. Finally, a day later I was able to see it. Then we went a couple of days of not seeing it. It doesn't seem to have a regular cycle yet so we were happy to see it come back this morning and it showed off for several minutes.

We have a lot of Yellow-rumped Warblers throughout the winter and usually one or two Pine Warblers hanging out. This Orange-crowned Warbler is a infrequent visitor.

And this morning we had a lot of Eastern Bluebirds at the feeder. It is not uncommon to see a couple of them around but usually far back in the yard or on the edge of the marsh. So 5 at the feeder is quite the sight. We loved the variation in blue between the male and female. Her blue was such a wonderful sky blue. And note the Pine Warbler that decides it wants in the photo action too.

(Lots) More Butterflies

 This past week my wife and I were up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We stayed in a cabin part way up the mountain near "Warbler Road." Warbler Road is a group of gravel roads leading from the James River up to Sunset Fields on the Blue Ridge Parkway and is well known for the diverse birding, especially northern warblers and other song birds found at the higher elevations. Finding a cabin so close to the start of Warbler Road made morning birding easier. However, that is a slow way to get to and from the parkway. I had noticed that the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail book recommended taking another gravel road back to the parkway after reaching the bottom instead of heading out to the interstate. That road was right next to our cabin so we gave it a try and it was a beautiful and relaxing drive. A little slow but not as windy or treacherous as the main road and it avoided the interstate. Plus, it was about 10 minutes quicker. 

  On the first trip up, my wife noticed several wild flowers on the side the road and it was easy to pull over and investigate (we passed 2 cars in the three trips along the entire length). One that was particularly interesting is this four-leaved milkweed (Asclepias quadrifolia). 

It has been a dry May throughout Virginia but that partially brought one day when a few afternoon storms built up. We largely stayed dry and the roads quickly dried out. But on the drive back to the cabin we saw a kaleidoscope of butterflies (yes, that seems to be the accepted group name, I looked it up on the all-knowing Internet). We think that the rain must of brought some minerals up to the surface and they were all drinking them in. It was a striking sight with nearly twenty tiger swallowtails all grouped together. As we stood there, a few started flying around but the rest largely ignored us. And then a truck drove by and flushed them all up into the air. It was a serendipitous find that I won't soon forget.

Happy Butterflying!

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.