Washington Area Butterfly Club

Field Reports



April 1997

April 28 -- Pat Durkin
Don (my husband) and I saw literally hundreds of Palamedes and Zebra Swallowtails at Great Dismal Swamp this weekend. Also, dozens of Creole Pearly Eyes. Most of them were among the blizzard of butterflies more familiar to me on the path along Jericho Ditch. What a weekend!

April 23 -- Pat Durkin
Janet Bruner said yesterday she saw Monarchs laying eggs on her infant milkweed. I hope these babies don't wipe out their host plants.

April 23 -- Dick Smith
As reported by Denise Gibbs (via Rich Bray), she and her husband found 20-plus Frosted Elfins on Saturday at an Eastern Shore site. That's terrific news. Doug Sampson, land steward for the Maryland Nature Conservancy, started a small parcel, land-management clearing project in Worcester Co. a couple of years ago to promote lupine (the larval host plant there) growth and Frosted "Elfin" population level at the site. It looks like it's working! (In 1982, I found a dozen or so specimens there; but in 1992, I could only find one(!) ) In Southern Maryland the host is wild indigo, which only had short shoots and was hard to locate last Sunday [4/20/97]. It looks like it's (at least) not a low ebb year for Frosteds, so I might try Southern Maryland again in May (the brood lasts through the month). The only substantiated colony of Frosteds I knew of in the past ten years in Southern Maryland was unfortunately wiped out by severe powerline cut clearing.

April 22 -- Pat Durkin
Within the last week, I've seen Monarchs along Independence Avenue (1) and around the Reflecting Pool(2), on Daigerfield Island on the Virginia side of the Potomac (1) near the Airport, and at Catoctin Mountain Park (1). I suppose our unusually warm spring has brought them up.

April 20 -- Dick Smith
I made a quick trek through Calvert and St. Mary's Counties in the afternoon trying to rediscover an active Frosted Elfin colony in Southern Maryland. Unfortunately, this was to no avail (again); but the habitats always provide brief encounters (as yesterday) with one or two Henry's, Pine, and Brown Elfins before the day is over. As Stephanie [Mason] said last week and according to the Cape May Bird Observatory, a lot of people are reporting early spring Monarch sightings this year. This was certainly true in Southern Maryland; I saw one or two Monarchs along practically every road. I'm planning to write a note summarizing all of this in the Md. Ent. Soc. newsletter for May.

Updated 14 July 1997