It was a beautiful day, and most of our time was spent in or along a couple of fields, so there was plenty to count. Here's a fun shot of Terri and Carl. Carl is consulting one of his guide books, and Terri is looking perturbed. This is the only picture I have of them, but I swear, it is deceptive! Terri is one of the most friendly, relax people I have every met. She had a great time during the count and was wonderful company. She was in the best of moods the entire day!
This is mostly going to be pictures. There is not a lot to say about much of it. It was sunny and hot, we saw butterflies, we identified butterflies, we counted butterflies! But, before I start spitting out butterflies, there was one in particular that is worth chatting about...
We spotted this little Common Checkered Skipper early in the day. It lighted on a piece of grass and I snapped a quick, albeit blurry, picture before it took off again.
When it landed on its next perch---a weedy looking purple flower---it began acting kinda funny, fluttering its wings pretty fast. I didn't pay much attention to its behavior, but I was able to get a better shot.
Upon closer inspection, I learned that its frantic flutter was actually a butterflyish death rattle! It was caught in the pedipalps of a well camouflaged crab spider!
Hmmm, come to think of it, I wonder if the Checkered Skipper should be counted in a situation such as this. We certainly saw it, but it ceased to be before we reported our numbers! (Not truly an issue, we counted hundreds of these and ended up having to approximate anyway.)
Let me digress for a moment... Before heading out to Bates Fork, I spotted these little critters on one of the animal-proof recycling bins at the visitor center. I don't know what they are, but they were pretty cool. I think my next PhD might be in entomology.
Back to the Flutterbys.
A Pearly-Eye. Can't say which kind due to bad lighting.
A Common Buckeye.
Here's some kind of medium size Skipper. "Brown Butterfly" was the story of the day. I learned a lot, but I forgot even more, like the name of this critter! It looks like a little bitty fighter jet if you ask me. It is "flight ready" with it's wee wings standing up.
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I love how its little face is in focus here with its curled up, red proboscis!
Skipper Sex. Nough said.
Here's a Viceroy. This one is a Monarch mimic, distinguishable by the black line through the hindwings and the single line of white dots in the marginal band.
A Gray Hairstreak. She posed for a picture broadside, then turned to show me her cute face! (The male has an orange-tipped abdomen.)
Can you guess why it's called a Hairstreak?
What you see below is a Gulf Fritillary, one of the most beautiful of the butterflies, at least if you ask me. I decided it had a silly name, so I've renamed it Iridescence Immaculates. I absolutely love the fuzzy little orange and white striped (not stripped, Mom) body! We saw hundreds of these!
A Carolina Satyr.
Lace-winged Roadside Skipper.
Fiery Skipper.
Silver-spotted Skipper. This one is identifiable by what I was told was Idaho on its wings. Looks more like an upside-down Illinois if you ask me!
And we'll round things off with some butterfly-eaters. So it goes...
If you do a Google image search, you find lots of different things called Golden Orb Weavers. But, the silk of the Golden Orb Weaver is actually golden in color. It was really neat to see this massive arachnid. The abdomen was about two inches long, and I mistakenly thought that the yellow web was coated in pollen.
I'm not sure what this one is, but the way it was positioned overhead on its shimmering web was pretty cool (and creepy)!
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