Butterflies of Shawnee

 Some of the best of spring butterflies can be found at Shawnee State Park and Forest.  Fortunately, this weekend I got to help lead trips for the 10th Annual OOS Conference with a couple of excellent butterfly experts.

Falcate Orange-tip 

One of our earliest lepidopteran fliers in Ohio, the Falcate Orange-tips can be quite a challenge to photograph.  It usually involves much running and shouting.  We were pretty lucky this day.

Leah beams upon her first Falcate Orange-tip

One young conference attendee, seemed to have a mesmerizing effect on the little bugs.  Leah is a Zane State student of one of our keynote speakers, Scott Albaugh.  She has a real love of butterflies and spent several years monitoring them at The Wilds.

 Dean and Patty look on as leader Troy Shively displays a salamander for the group.  Sam (in green) was ultimately the luckiest guy at the conference, and now a big fan of conservation!  We filled the cooler early morning hours with birding and salamandering, until it was warm enough for the butterflies to fly.

Dave Horn displays his belt net-carry system.

 Dave Reipenhoff and Dave Horn also led this trip.  We were flush with butterflying talent!  Dave Horn is a retired professor OSU entomology professor with degrees from Harvard.  We soon enjoyed some friendly banter about his Ivy League education being far more impressive than my "poison ivy" league degree!

Henry's Elfin

 We found another southern Ohio specialty butterfly, the diminutive Henry's Elfin.  We were able to find a total of ten or more for the tour.  Henry's are what we call "rare but locally-common."  Once you develop a search image for them, one can find them in good numbers, where they occur.  Their host plant is the Eastern Redbud, which was in full bloom for our conference along many forest roads.

Thanks to my fellow guides, we had a great time and amassed a respectable list of both birds and butterflies. Let's not wait ten years before we do it again!

The Butterfly season begins.

Warning! Viewing these photos could make you earnestly long for spring and strike out for early season butterflying.  Sane people do not look for butterflies in winter coat weather.  Now that we have established a definition of sane, we know that my friends and I fall through that crack.

Henry's Elfin, Callophrys henrici

 So who is Henry, and why does he rate a butterfly? That I do not know.

We do know it is one of our earliest butterflies, it is no bigger than a dime, and tends to be southern in Ohio.  It is common, locally.  Which means you can see numerous Henry's, if you find one.  You should look for them where you find naturally occurring stands of Eastern Redbud.

The bud on Eastern Redbud

 Henry's lay their eggs on the buds of Eastern Redbud, Cercis canadensis.  The adults emerge in time to mate and lay eggs on the flower buds. Butterflies emergence is not timed with the calendar as much as it is timed with phenology, or the blooming of plants.  The Redbuds are late to bloom this year, and you can bet the Henry's are perfectly timed with them.  That is how nature works.

Male Falcate Orange-tip, Anthocharis midea

 Falcate Orange-tip is of the butterfly Family Pieridae (the whites and yellows.)

This early spring emergent is a feast for the eyes, at least the boldly marked males are.

Female Falcate Organe-tip

 The females could be easily overlooked.  They are smaller versions of a Common Cabbage White, with an odd mottled coloring to their hindwings.

Mated Falcate Orange-tips, Male left, female right

Both male and female have the mottled underwing, but you will rarely see it.  In fact, this is the only time I have photographed the underwing.  It is difficult, if not down right impossible to get decent photographs of this hyper-active species.  The cold weather worked in our favor; these poor butterflies were moving in slow motion due to the chilly temps.

It is a rarity to find butterfly seekers in cold weather gear, but here we are: the Ohio Lepidopterists' sub-group called B.O.G. (Butterfly Observers Group.)  We watch, photograph, document and celebrate butterflies.

But we never, never pin.   Wishing you a great day in the field, even when you have to wear a jacket!