Compton Tortoiseshell & Catching up on the last month or two

 

After reading a recent blog posting from Blake about the Skunks Misery butterfly count, I had to give another try to find the Compton Tortoiseshell butterfly. This past Saturday, I had gotten up early and drove to Newbury ON's MOSA forest - (AKA Skunks Misery) to try and discover this gorgeous butterfly. I have seen 154 different species before adding this to my life list. To my knowledge, this butterfly is surprisingly common up near Toronto and north of Toronto but it becomes more and more scarce as one heads to the southern reaches of the province. I spent several hours driving and walking at Skunks Misery looking for this. I must have looked at hundreds of butterflies for 3-4 hours before finding this diamond in the rough!

Some butterflies seen from memory:

Compton Tortoiseshell 1

Great Spangled Fritillary

Eastern Comma 3

Gray Comma 1 ?

Question Mark 3

Spicebush Swallowtail 2

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail 2

Giant Swallowtail 1

Red spotted Purple 2

Tawny Emporer 20

Hackberry Emporer 20

Monarch 30

Striped hairstreak 4

Banded hairstreak 15

Hairstreak Sp 10

Clouded Sulphur 2

Cabbage white 2

Black dash skipper 30

Eastern Tailed Blue 2

Red Admiral 3

Crescent Sp. 4

Northern Pearly-Eye 2

Little Wood-Satyr 7

Common Wood-Nymph 5

Going back a few more days - I had taken my family for a nature walk/bike at the Pinery Provincial Park in Lambton County. 

While walking on Riverside Trail within the park, my son pointed out a little butterfly on the pathway that appeared to be dying! I went to look at it and realized it was a moth species I had never seen, an oakworm moth species!  I was hoping to see a Mottled Duskywing - but I was unable to find one. 

Orangestriped Oakworm Moth

The Neighbor

Coral Hairstreak

I have gone out with a small group of moth-ers this summer so far and have started to see some underwing species that we love so much: 

Some other noteworthy sightings and photos below just for fun:

Prairie Milkweed (Sulivants Milkweed)

Good Naturalizing,

Dwayne

Comet - Neowise + Some Underwing Moths

I woke up this morning at 4:00 am, and headed out to Lakewood Park South, which is in Tecumseh ON. I met up with Steve Pelerin, who is a local astronomy expert. Using my 400mm lens on a cropped sensor resulted in many blurry, shaky photos. I had arrived having realized my wife removed my tripod from my car recently.

I will try to go back tomorrow with my tripod, and I might also try using different (non-telephoto) lenses.

I have been mothing alot lately - at least once per week. So far this year, I have seen at least 6 species of underwing moths, with three new lifer moths!

Below I have four that I was able to photograph:

Ultronia Underwing
Little Underwing (lifer)
Hawthorn Underwing (lifer)
White Underwing (lifer)
Ilia Underwing (not shown)
Girlfriend Underwing (not shown)

Good Astronomizing & Mothing,
Dwayne