Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy

Our Monarchs from here in Loudoun have arrived in Mexico and are in their winter slumber. PBS put together a terrific film on the migration:

Follow the 2,000-mile migration of monarchs to a sanctuary in the highlands of Mexico. Airs tomorrow night – November 30, 2011 on PBS

Program Description

Orange-and-black wings fill the sky as NOVA charts one of nature’s most remarkable phenomena: the epic migration of monarch butterflies across North America. To capture a butterfly’s point of view, NOVA’s filmmakers used a helicopter, ultralight, and hot-air balloon for aerial views along the transcontinental route. This wondrous annual migration, which scientists are just beginning to fathom, is an endangered phenomenon that could dwindle to insignificance if the giant firs that the butterflies cling to during the winter disappear.

You can watch a preview of the film here – it’s fantastic: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/journey-butterflies.html

Yesterday was the monthly bird walk at Banshee by Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy and the Friends of Banshee Reeks. This lovely fall morning was enjoyed by 11 birders, led by Joe Coleman, Laura McGranaghan, and Mary Ann Good. 

We got first-of-fall looks at a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and Swamp and White-throated Sparrows.

We also spotted a couple of Bald Eagles, a No. Harrier, and a probable migrating family group of 4 Am. Kestrels.  A lingering Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Chimney Swift, Gray Catbird, Palm Warbler, and Brown Thrasher were also seen. We were surprised to watch a begging young Am. Goldfinch being fed by its parent.

It was a beautiful crisp morning with dew covering beautiful spider webs that glistened in the sunlight. As the morning warmed, we were also delighted to see a variety of butterflies that included migrating Monarchs clearly on the move, Common Buckeyes, a Variegated Fritillary, Orange Sulphur and an Eastern-tailed Blue.
 
The complete list of birds follows:
Canada Goose, Black Vulture, Turkey Vulture, Bald Eagle – 2, No. Harrier, Red-tailed Hawk, Am. Kestrel – 4, Mourning Dove, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Chimney Swift, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Downy Woodpecker, No. Flicker, Pileated Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Am. Crow, Fish Crow, Car. Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Carolina Wren, E. Bluebird, thrush sp. – 2, Am. Robin – hundreds, Gray Catbird, No. Mockingbird, Brown Thrasher, Eur. Starling, Cedar Waxwing – 2, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Palm Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, E. Towhee – 5, Field Sparrow – 4, Swamp Sparrow – 4, White-throated Sparrow, No. Cardinal, Am. Goldfinch

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFoSpaNqqeQ&feature=player_embedded

Monarch butterflies that you see right now are the last generation of the year. This is the generation that will live up to 9 months! (rather than 2-4 weeks) and migrate 2000+ miles to overwinter in a tiny forest area in Mexico that they have never been to before.

Here is a great video that shows their lifecycle:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGmobCkApO0

This past spring, when the Monarchs were migrating north from Mexico, they found terrible drought conditions in Texas. Texas is a critical stop for the Monarchs in this relay of life. Finding little by way of nectar and host plants, the Monarchs pushed further north and we saw this tired generation showing up in gardens here in April and May to lay their eggs and give their last hurrah.

Throughout the summer and now in early fall, reports of Monarchs have been low. When this last generation of the year heads to Mexico, Monarch Watch will do a count to see what the population looks like.

If you would like to help Monarchs, you can plant a Monarch Waystation this fall. Contact us and we’ll send you a seed kit while supplies last. More information about monarch waystations can be found here. Once you have your waystation planted, be sure to register it with Monarch Watch and get involved with the community!

The Pipevine Swallowtail is another butterfly that we have here in Loudoun.  Pipevine Swallowtails have two host plants which the caterpillars feed on. One is the Pipevine, sometimes also called Dutchman’s Pipe. The other is Virginia Snakeroot.

I planted some Pipevine in our yard a few years ago, and while it took some time to get established, it now serves as a pipevine buffet, with a good number of butterflies raised from it each year.

Earlier this summer, I was inspecting the vine and saw the orange eggs, all clustered together.  A few hours later, the eggs started to hatch and I caught it on video!  I raised the caterpillars indoors and then released the adult butterflies.  It was a lot of fun.  Here’s a video that shows the different stages:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEyo_a0dl4Q

The butterfly count, held on August 6th this year, started out as touch-and-go. In the days leading up to the count, the weather forecast got grimmer and grimmer with it ultimately being “cloudy and a 70% chance of thunderstorms.” Now, if we were doing amphibian monitoring, that would have been a terrific forecast but butterflies prefer temperatures in the high 70s at least and they don’t fly in the rain.

As morning broke though, the cloud cover was high so we were hopeful.  Eight teams, with 59 people, gathered at their meeting spots a little before 9am.  It was still cool at that time, around 75 degrees, and with the exception of the Blue Ridge Center, the morning had a slow start.

By about 10am, the butterflies were showing up. The cloud cover and slight breeze made for a more comfortable day than we’ve seen in past years and temperatures reached the mid-80s – perfect for butterflies!  But where were they? 

Across the board numbers were down. In terms of diversity, we had 43 species (compared to 47-49 in past years) but it was the number of individual butterflies that was profound, as we recorded just 2312 individuals. This is the lowest count we’ve seen since 2004 and a huge departure from the last two years where we saw well over 4,000 individuals each count. 

While numbers were low across the board, we especially noticed that the swallowtails, fritillaries and sulphurs were almost absent in locations where they are typically seen and in general their numbers seemed to be cut in half.  Monarchs were low at just 52, compared to 193 in 2009 and 82 in 2010.

The Red-banded hairstreak was higher than in past years and the American Copper showed up at a couple of different locations, giving many participants a “lifer”. The Common Buckeye, Eastern-tailed Blue, Silver Spotted Skipper, Dun Skipper and Zabulon Skipper all had healthy numbers on par with past years.

All in all, a nice day for the count but the lack of butterflies has had a lot of us asking what happened? We didn’t have the best day for the count with the cloud cover but it was warm enough that the butterflies would have been out if they were around and the showy swallowtails could not have been missed. 

It all comes down to weather and habitat for butterflies.  The cool spring with its rain storms may have been too much for the adults to handle. That, followed by the heat we had through July, may have made it so the caterpillars/chrysalids couldn’t survive or develop. 

In the weeks leading up to the count, I scoured the listservs and across the country fellow butterfly counters were reporting low numbers and asked the same questions we did. I just wondered if our count would bear out the same truths, and it did.

What are the butterflies telling us on a national level? In the fall, the North American Butterfly Association, where we submit our data, will have the national data compiled. It will be interesting to see the conclusions they draw.

You can view our Loudoun County data from 1997-2011 on our website: http://www.loudounwildlife.org/Butterfly_Count_Summary_Data.htm

Our thanks go out to everyone who participated in the count this year! We couldn’t have done it without you!

If you missed the count this year, mark your calendars now for next year! We hold it on the first Saturday every August.

No, this isn’t one of those monster movies — I’m talking butterflies! 

Giant Swallowtails are seen very rarely here in Loudoun and personally it’s been 3 years since I’ve seen one, but I just saw a posting on a local listserv about this being a possible irruption year so we just may see them. 

Typically, they live south of us and especially love the orange groves of Florida, but their range does span to our area in a limited way.

Giant Swallowtails look like Eastern Tiger Swallowtails at first glance but they are bigger, the markings are slightly different and their bodies are all yellow. The links included here prove more information about each species.

Here’s the posting:

I have been lurking on the VT and NY lep listservs, and it appears that a full-blown movement of Giant Swallowtails is underway this year. Although several field guides and more arcane publications advise that ” movements northward can sometimes result in small breeding colonies well north or the Giant Swallowtails’s normal range”, the reports I am seeing seem to indicate an irruption, as well as breeding colonies. Wafer ash and prickly ash (neither are actually related to the ash tree sp.) are common in upstate NY and southern NE. We have had them here in Rohrersville (SE Washington
County, MD) for two weeks now, and based on all of these sightings it’s highly unlikely that these are escapes or hitchhikers on commercial nursery plants/trees (pupa, larva) from the Deep South. Think about it: Giant Swallowtails in Vermont! Hmmm… is global warming such a bad thing?

In any event what an amazing sight! After years searching for a pitiful few in Boyds, MD ( I have only seen one there) Kathleen and I squealed like little kids as the Giant glided over our gardens. They LOVED the Lantana, and, of course, the Buddelia.

Anyone else here in VA MD DE DC seeing them in areas where they are not historically recorded?

Frank Boyle
 

This weekend is the Loudoun County 15th Annual Butterfly Count and one of the things we look for through this count is population increases and declines.

I just saw this posting by Monarch Watch (quoted below) about the state of Monarch Butterfly populations and I wanted to share it with you.

I have just started seeing Monarch butterflies in our yard in the last week.  In the past, I’ve seen them through June and July.

It will be interesting to see what our butterfly count bears out.

A lot has happened since Monarch Watch was created in 1992. We’ve seen the overwintering population in Mexico increase each year from 1994 to 1996, only to crash inexplicably in 1997. We have seen ups and downs in overwintering numbers – but mostly downs since 2003. In fact, the population has been below the long-term average for the last seven years. The downward trend is now statistically significant (Brower, et al. 2011) and it is clear that we have entered a new era of monarch numbers.

The great migrations of the 90s are a thing of the past. In the future, we can expect overwintering populations in Mexico of 2-6 hectares. The main reason for the decline is loss of habitat. Monarch habitat has been reduced by at least 140 million acres in the last 10 years – about a fifth of the total breeding area available to monarchs has been lost. At least 100 million acres of habitat has been lost due to the adoption of herbicide resistant corn and soybeans.

So, where does this leave us and what does this mean for tagging? We can expect a low year for monarchs, perhaps not as low as 2009 (1.92 hectares) or 2004 (2.19 hectares) but close to these numbers.

The migration should be particularly low in the New England area and the numbers at Cape May will be low as well. The central region (Ontario, MI, OH, IN, IL) will see a modest migration and could produce more monarchs than the area defined by the eastern Dakotas, MN, WI, and IA. Even though the population will be down from historical highs, there will still be plenty of monarchs to tag.

We’re gearing up for our 15th Annual Loudoun County Butterfly Count and would love to have you join us!

The count takes place on the first Saturday in August each year – so this year it falls on Saturday, August 6th.  We start at 9:00 a.m. by meeting up in our teams at designated meeting spots and we count throughout the day, visiting gardens, sanctuaries and wild roadside locations all within our count circle.

You can participate for the whole day or just part of the day – your choice – but we could sure use your help on a team!

To learn more about the annual butterfly count, see past years data and sign up, visit our Butterfly Count webpage.

Hope you will join us!  All experience levels are welcome!

Over sixty people came out for our Butterfly Identification Class and Field Session this past Saturday. After checking in and getting copies of our newest publication, the Field Guide to the Butterflies of Loudoun County, we got right into the class session.  Photos are on our facebook page.

We started with some discussion around butterfly lifecycle and habitat preferences as the foundation and then went right into the different identification tips for 56 of the 85 species seen here in Loudoun.

After a quick break for lunch, we broke into groups for the field session and explored the wild and weedy areas around Ida Lee Park as well as the master gardener’s garden. 

This was the chance to test our skills with butterfly identification — especially on those skippers — and we definitely got our chance as the skippers were skipping all around!

In all, the groups saw approximately 25 different species and were able to get great looks at Sachem skippers in particular as they nectared on thistle.  Sachems were certainly the highest number and we saw both males and females for a nice comparison.

Here is a list of the butterflies seen: Black Swallowtail, Spicebush Swallowtail, Cabbage White, Clouded Sulphur, Orange Sulphur, Gray Hairstreak, Eastern-tailed Blue, Summer Azure, Variegated Fritillary, Silvery Checkerspot, Pearl Crescent, American Lady. Common Buckeye, Red-spotted Purple, Common Wood Nymph, Monarch, possible Hackberry Emperor, Silver-spotted Skipper, Least Skipper, Fiery Skipper, Peck’s Skipper, Tawny-edged Skipper, Crossline Skipper, Little Glassywing, Sachem.

If you’re interested in learning more about butterflies, you can still sign up for our Annual Butterfly Count.  More details about the butterfly count can be found here.