Eastern Fringed Prairie Orchid & Sullivant's Milkweed ... Botanizing in West Windsor

Eastern Fringed Prairie Orchid

Wow, today I had two botanical discoveries! I finally found the ultra rare Eastern Fringed Prairie Orchid at Ojibway Park which is a plant that I've been wanting to see for years. It's an endangered plant [link] and I was able to see it at the very end of its flowering stage.

Sullivant's Milkweed

Another fantastic discovery that I made today was this Sullivant's Milkweed - another rare plant found in prairie habitat. This plant is similar to common milkweed, but has pink central vein in the plant's leaves and two-tone colours for its flowers.


I have found several other interesting flowers while looking for the orchid above. I've done alot of reading and researching online as well as referencing a botany guide I was recently given.  A cool bug that I found recently is the Candy-striped Leafhopper.   I will let the photos below tell the story of some of my other recent nature highlights.

Wood Lily or Prairie Lily

Michigan Lily 

Butterfly Milkweed

Swamp Milkweed

Purple Milkweed

Northern Broken Dash?

Black Dash Skipper

Good Birding, Leping, Herping and Botanizing!
Dwayne

Windsor LaSalle Butterfly Count 2014 (v2)

Monarch on Butterfly Milkweed - Butterfly watchers are happy to see a slight population rebound from last summer

Last July, I did a review of the Windsor LaSalle Butterfly count for 2013 [link]. So I figured I would continue tradition this year. This year's count took place on July 5th, 2014. I actually didn't officially take part in this year's count. My son had a soccer game on that Saturday morning but I was able to catch up with the butterfly census about an hour after it started at Brunet Park in LaSalle.

Its always fun to see a bunch of Hairstreaks nectaring on Butterfly Milkweed

Interesting Notes from this years survey:

•  1,787 individuals of 49 species for the 2014 butterfly count (1,471  of 52 species in 2013)
• 19 Monarch butterflies as opposed to last year's 3 Monarchs [link]! The 10 year running average for Monarchs is 32 for this count (source: http://www.ojibway.ca/nabc2012.pdf). I actually have finally seen a few Monarchs this year (starting with this recent count) at Ojibway and Point Pelee.
• No American Coppers this year (I did see one earlier in the season though)
• No Mulberry Winged Skippers this year- A species that I was going to really try to catch up with...
• A worn Northern Oak Hairstreak was found at Brunet Park a new species for the count!
• Edwards, Acadian, Coral and Banded Hairstreak are pretty easily found at Spring Garden area, and huge numbers of Hickory Hairstreaks were seen at Brunet Park in LaSalle this year (100+)

Here are some pictures I took while butterfly watching on or around the butterfly count...

At one point of our walk, we noticed a giant bumble bee nectaring on milkweed flowers, and then a second giant bumble bee... No... A Snowberry Clearing Moth nectaring on the same plant as a bumble bee! The Snowberry Clearwing moth is a bumble bee mimic and it was cool to see them nectaring side by side!

My son and I also went to Point Pelee after the butterfly count (July 6th) to see what we could find along East Beach ... Lots of butterflies were to be seen but highlights included 1-Pipevine Swallowtail and 4-Striped Hairstreaks.

Good Butterfly Watching!
Dwaynejava

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.