Night meetings aren't all Bad

My position at the Quabbin requires attendance at numerous night meetings and this Monday was no exception. Two hours in a crowed room, swatting mosquitoes, drawn by the exhaling crowd, and listening to the emotionally charged conversation. Lightning flashed in the night sky over Quabbin Reservoir as the crowd dissipated. Jonathan Yeo and I exited out the rear door locking up the office for the night when a large moth flashed from the breezeway.

Ilia Underwing Catacola ilia (8801) Underwings are a wonderful group of moths whose cryptic coloration keeps them well hidden from predators until the flash of the colorful under wing pattern startles the would be predator allowing a hasty escape. I first heard about them in the 1970's at Focus Outdoors at UMass where the renowned entomologist Ted Sargent talked of baiting moths with sugar and stale beer (Dad's beer was never safe again). Underwings were Ted's favorite; secretive and not usually attracted to lights making the development of special baits a kind of competition to find the secret ingredients that will fool these mysterious moths into view. Ted Sargent was also fascinated by the English names given species in this group of moths including the Sweetheart, Darling, Once-married, Mother, and the Penitent.

I don't see these beauties very often and this Ilia Underwing was the first I've been able to photograph in recent times. A great way to end an evening

Butterflies in short Supply

The Athol Bird and Nature Club used to take the summers off as birds were busy with nesting activities and members headed off for sunny beaches or focused on the home garden. The rising popularity of insect watching as led to a plethora of summer workshops and local trips in search of Butterflies, Dragonflies and other interesting members of the smaller world.

Saturday was one of those workshops. A dozen members and new friends joined Susan Heinricher and I at the Millers River Environmental Center for an overview of butterfly identification and then we were off to a local milkweed filled field for what I had hoped would be some great viewing of our local butterflies.

The flowers were abundant, the butterflies were not. The list included Monarch, Viceroy, Tiger Swallowtail, Great Spangled Fritillary, Common Ringlet, Summer Azure, Silver-spotted Skipper, Delaware Skipper and Little Glassywing. But instead of dozens of each species we only encountered about 20 individual butterflies and those we really had to work for, Perhaps the months of rain and wet weather has stressed our local populations. The best thing about insects if their ability to rebound, Able to lay hundreds of eggs at a time a bad season can be quickly
made up when conditions improve.

A subset of the group not saying "Uncle" traveled to my old stomping grounds of Tully Lake. Sharing the wet spillway meadows with the Disc Golf enthusiasts we quickly found American Copper and dozens of our target species the Bog Copper.
Aphrodite and Silver-bordered Fritillary were added to the days list, but as the group made its way along this wet open meadow a shift to Odonates began to emerge, The Variable Dancer Argia fumipenis, Slender Bluet Enallagma traviatum Calico Pennant Celithemis elisa, Halloween Pennant Celithemis eponia, Common Green Darner Anax junius, Spangled Skimmer Libellula cyanea, and dozens of my favorite little dragonfly the Elfin Skimmer Nanothemis bella

The real star of the show for me were several Eastern Red Damsels Amphiagrion saucium.
These diminutive damselflys have escaped detection locally for both Lula Field and I. Our friend Earle Baldwin has claimed finding them at two local locations (I guess now I'll have to concede and quit giving him grief) At any rate the Odonates saved the day and we wound up with a respectable list of these wonderful creatures...

Today we are off to the Ware River Watershed in Central Mass. This relatively unkown 24,000 acre area is part of the DCR Division of Water Suppy Protection's Quabbin Region. Skies are clearing after yet another rainy night... Who knows what will catch our eye today... Stay Tuned

4th of July Butterfly Counts

Finally a sunny weekend and just in time for the NABA 4th of July Butterfly Counts. I had the pleasure of attending 2 counts this weekend. The first North Worcester County Count was organized by Carl Kamp and the Wachusett Meadows gang with a Great after count BBQ by the Walker Family. This was a nice day for my wife Shelley and I to spend some quality time away from the garden chores bouncing around some interesting habitats and having fun... The second was the Eastern Franklin County count organized by Mark Fairbrother centered around Turners falls. I had the pleasure of the Company of my new friend Eric Eaton who is here for a few months from Tuscon.

Both counts were a lot of fun and a great chance to hang out with friends from both east and west of our Athol home base. Butterfly diversity and number of individuals on both counts were low. This perhaps due to the recent monsoons frustrating entomology buffs for weeks... But as always a day in the field brings interesting sightings and experiences. Sunday Eric and I found this interesting coupling of a Little Glassywing with a European Skipper... Will we return next year to this field to find European Glassywings?

There were many highlights for the day including a Spadderdock Darner Aeschna muttata which we stumbled upon as we exited a particularly rich patch of overgrown field near the Connecticut River in Northfield. Eric and I exchanged our enthusiasm and knowledge of the various insects we came across making for a fun and interesting day... Between us the insects didn't have a chance to escape our constantly clicking cameras.

I hope the folks conducting other counts over the weekend and the big Waldon Pond Bioblitz had as much fun as we did enjoying the first sunny weekend in a long time and our beloved invertebrates...