Dion Skipper - Life butterfly at #119!

Dion Skipper

This morning I went for a bike ride along the Essex Country Greenway bike path. I was hoping to find some sedge patches that might host one of the last species in Southwestern Ontario that I hadn't really seen, photographed or "lifered". Oddly enough, I feel that I've been out on some butterfly counts where "Dion" was mentioned but I didn't really get a chance to observe the field marks or photograph it.  I had seen "several" sedge skippers this morning but none were convincingly "Dion" - the most common Sedge skipper in Essex is probably the Dukes Skipper, which is a little bit of a provincial rarity that is endemic to Essex County.

Dion Skipper's host plant is: Carex lacustris (Lake Sedge)
Mulberry wing Skipper's host plant is: Carex stricta (Tussock Sedge)

Along that greenway I has spotted some other butterflies and moths as well. They include:
Snowberry Clearwing Moth on Catnip
Horace's Duskywing
Red Spotted Purple
Eastern Comma
Monarchs
Giant Swallowtail
Common Buckeye
Duke's Skipper

Some birds included:
Brown Thrashers
Baltimore Orioles
Indigo Buntings
among many other common birds

Later near Oxley, I noticed a Northern Mockingbird on a wire - they are a little more common near Kingsville it seems. Still - a pretty cool bird to spot while driving.

Good birding!