The Grand Canyon of Essex County - The Cyphersystem Greenway in Amherstburg + Recent butterfly watching efforts

Recently the Essex County Field Naturalists did a walk along this beautiful biking and hiking corridor. It is part of a network of abandoned railways that have been converted into hiking paths. I had seen a recent social media posting about this location so I took my son for a quick bike ride to see it! Just a quick note - a local naturalist who had walked this trail nicknamed this stretch of pathway the "Grand Canyon of Essex County" - but of course, its not a canyon - its a low lying waterway and floodplain with a vantage point perhaps 20m above it (from an old rail corridor).

This photo does not quite do the scene justice. But - does it ever?

Some birds seen and heard during this walk were:

• Red Headed Woodpeckers
• Tufted Titmouse
• Indigo Buntings
• Northern Rough winged Swallows
• Caronlina Wren
• House Wren
• Baltimore Oriole

I also did a walk with a few Butterfly Naturalists on Saturday July 7th. I joined Blake Mann, Paul Desgardins and Jeff Larson who faithfully do this butterfly count every year.

It was a pretty good day at Brunet Park in Lasalle - as we had seen perhaps 60 or so Hairstreak butterflies with the majority of them being Hickory Hairstreaks. Banded Hairstreaks were seen as well .  We had seen Dukes Skippers in pretty good numbers with three seperate sightings.  At one point of our walk - Blake pointed out a birdcall that I was mildly familiar with - the call of a Hooded Warbler! Later on, in a completely seperate part of the park, I heard another one or two more singing! A pretty good bird for Essex County!

Good birding, lepping, and botanizing!

Dwayne

Late June Lepidoptera Observations around Windsor

 Lepidoptera is a term coined by Carl Linnaeus in 1735. The term is derived from greek origins meaning "Scaled Wing". The photo above (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidoptera) shows a scanning electron microscopy view of the scales on a butterfly wing at 50X through 5000X. The scales on the wings of butterflies have many functions: to attract mates, camoflage, mimicry, thermoregulation, insulation and pheromone production (wikipedia). (A small area on male butterfly wings called 'stigma' glands is what actually produces pheremones if I'm not mistaken). So when I go out birding, if I get a chance to get a good look at a butterfly, I take it! With the right optics, you can really get amazing views of the details, colours, patterns that butterflies provide. Some butterflies will allow close looks where you can almost grab them, and others will flutter away and keep a safe distance never to be seen again. I recall trying to find Hackberry Emporer butterflies at Point Pelee one summer, and while searching for one, one landed on me! I had another land on the dash of my car!

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better" - Albert Einstein.

Even with a cheap 55-250mm lens, you can actually see scale detail on butterflies if you get a good exposure. Do you know what butterfly this is?

My latest nature walks have focused on our local endowment of about 40-80 species of butterflies that can be found in Essex County (there are 174,250 species worldwide in the order of Lepidoptera). Right now (July) is prime time to go out and get a look at these fluttery beasts*! 

Red Admiral Butterfly - Dorsal and Ventral Composite

Red Admiral Butterfly. It took several exposures and adjustments on ISO, Aperture and shutter speed to get this shot! Once in a while a butterfly will afford you some time to capture it. This is the exception, not the norm though.

Hickory Hairstreak.  This rarity is pretty easily found at Brunet Park in Lasalle. This one only gave me 3 seconds of viewing.

This photo was of an obliging Banded Hairstreak. It was fresh and was nicely perched  at the forest edge sunning itself. Its hard to describe the colours you get from a fresh hairstreak. While moving its hindwings, it gives off a sheen of blue, purple and reddish copper colours. Brilliant!

The "hairstreaks" of a hairstreak butterfly is an example of self mimicry. A hungry bird wanting to eat this butterfly might be fooled into biting the wrong end of this butterfly - its non-vital hindwing, giving the butterfly one more chance to fly away and see another day.

Banded Hairstreak

Red Spotted Purple - A butterfly that mimicks the bad tasting Pipevine Swallowtail.  Its really a colour morph of the White Admiral butterfly!

Baltimore Checkerspot

Great spangled Fritillary on Purple Milkweed

My latest birding efforts have been good but nothing outside of what would be expected. I have seen and heard a great number of Great crested Flycatchers this summer at Ojibway, as well as Orioles, Indigo Buntings and Eastern Wood Peewees. One highlight from the third week of June was a group of five fledgling Green Herons at Ojibway (see below).

Five Green Heron Fledglings at Ojibway Park

American Toad 

So next time you're out in nature, take a second look at the lepidopteric gems that flutter about you. You just might be amazed at what you see! If you don't know what you are looking at consider getting a good field guide [link] .

Interested in joining a butterfly count in Essex? Read below for details of the Essex County butterfly count:

The Windsor Butterfly Count is being held Saturday, July 5 (2014). If you would like to attend we are meeting at 9:00 am at the Ojibway Nature Centre. We will then divide up into groups to cover the various parks and natural areas for butterflies.


Good Birding!
Dwaynejava

* "Fluttery Beasts" was a term coined by Ohio Blogger Jim McCormac. I must give him credit for that lexicographically brilliant description of butterflies.

Duke's Skipper and an unlikely Little Sulphur (Eurema lisa) -v2

Dukes Skipper on Chicory

I stopped by Brunet Park in LaSalle this morning, and to my amazement, photographed a skipper species that I had never seen, but recognized. This skipper had a long streak (or ray) on the underside of its hindwing that hinted of Duke's Skipper. Duke's Skipper and Dion's are quite similar, but the forest-edge habitat that Dukes frequents hinted that I had a pretty rare butterfly on my hands! Thankfully, I emailed the experts to get confirmation. Alan Wormington and Blake Mann confirmed the identification for me. 

More on Dukes Skippers:

http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Euphyes-dukesi

http://mnfi.anr.msu.edu/abstracts/zoology/Euphyes_dukesi.pdf

Another rarity (in my opinion anyway) was a "Little Yellow" I saw at Point Pelee yesterday. I saw it for just 5 seconds... I obtained this crappy but diagnostic photo.  Very cool! Just to get a sense of how rare these two are, neither of them were on the Ojibway Butterfly Count tally results [Link]... So pretty rare butterflies! 

I've never seen a Little Yellow in Canada. I had seen some along the road during my last trip to Florida, but was unable to get out and really look at them (I was stopped at an intersection). 

Hickory Hairstreak - Another Brunet Park Gem

Back to some more common butterflies...

Good butterfly watching!
Dwayne

Hairstreak Butterflies

One of my favorite butterfly photographs of an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Dense Blazingstar Wildflowers

While birding last summer, I realized that there can be some exciting breeding birds to see, but really, birding becomes a little bit static. Many great nature blogs that I was reading, (Burg Birder in particular) focused a little more on butterflies during this time and if some good birds were seen, then bonus!

Common Buckeye is found easily on PPNP's West Beach Pathway in midsummer.

This Snout Butterfly was found at PPNP in the researchers' lodge parking lot.

Great Spangled Fritillary on Butterfly Milkweed. Common at Ojibway in Early July

So I was familiar with Monarch Butterflies, and some of the big, beautiful Giant and Tiger Swallowtails. Other exciting butterflies seen and photographed last summer include Common Buckeye, Question Mark and Comma as well as Snout butterflies! Baltimore Checkerspot is just a dirt-common butterfly at Ojibway this summer, as well as Great Spangled Fratillary butterflies. You can't forget about Mourning Cloak butterflies which show up in your local forests very early during Spring.

But this posting is about a particular type of butterfly... Hairstreaks. They are really cool butterflies. They are pretty common and offer challenging identification opportunities. I must say, I saw a "Coral Hairstreak" last week with its bright orange spots (see below) and that was pretty exciting! Check out some photos below of Hairstreaks:

 Banded Hairstreak (on the roof of my car at Point Pelee)

 Striped Hairstreak

Coral Hairstreak on Butterfly Milkweed

Hickory Hairstreak

Grey Hairstreak

I'm still looking for an Edwards and White-M Hairstreak.  Non-Hairstreak butterflies I would love to see are Tawny or Hackberry Emperor, Milberts Tortoishell and oddly enough, American Copper!

So next time your out enjoying nature, don't just look for the large obvious butterflies... Look a little closer at the flowers and you might be pleasantly surprised at the tiny butterflies that are not obvious to most people. If you give them a chance, they can make for an exciting discovery. One thing about Hairstreaks you need to appreciate is that they are only 1-1.5cm in size. You could cover these hairstreaks with a nickel. Its good to have optics or a decent camera to document what you're looking at!

To identify these Hairstreaks, I recommend getting a butterfly guide. I bought one (Photo Field Guide to the Butterflies of Southern Ontario) at Ojibway Nature Center for about $10 and has been very useful. Next topic: Duskywings and Skippers... not!

Yours in birding,
Dwaynejava

Sources:
Carmichael Ian, "Photo Field Guide to the Butterflies of Southern Ontario",  Print, 2003, Alymer Express St Thomas Ontario.