Butterfly sightings for October 2007

Some casual observations while driving to work on this warm, early October day.

The Common Checkered-Skipper was seen in the Plainfield community garden in downtown Plainfield.

One unidentified Lady also flew past.

This past week I was still finding Eastern Forktails and American Rubyspots but was surprised today to find a Blue- Fronted Dancer and Hagens Bluet. But the real Rush was finding an Elusive Clubtail with those bright Blue Eyes!

The Fiery Skippers were seen at three separate sites.

A pair of butterflies discovered on my lunch break on the north side of the campus.

The monarchs seemed to all cluster around some tall purple flowers. They were so thick.

The Juniper Hairstreak is very unusual this late.

The Black Swallowtails were caterpillars.

Still lots of goldenrod in flower

Two Gray Hairstreaks, one old, one new. One of the Common Buckeyes had a very red lower hindwing.

I spotted these two in my garden this morning. Both were a surprise. It was the first Milbert's Tortoiseshell I had seen this year, and I had never seen a Little Yellow before.

High temperature today was 62. The Dainty Sulphur was in my prairie restoration in the same area as all previous sightings for this year. The weedy field where the Checkered Skippers have been was mowed off this past week, but I found one Checkered Skipper along the edge.

I have only seen one Sleepy so far this fall with the fall white markings and that was two weeks ago. Both of the ones that I saw today still had the summer orange markings. I also saw twenty plus Autumn Meadowhawks and three Darners.

in very bad shape but alive

The butterfly flew onto a shrub, sat there for just long enough for me to take a couple fairly distant zoom photos, but not long enough for me to approach and use my macro settings. When it flew I had the impression that it was quite orange on the upper side.

It was a delight to still see so many butterflies this late in the season. The skippers seem to prefer the herb garden which is well protected.

There might have been more Checkered-Skippers but they were flying around so fast that I really couldn't count. I did see six in one swirl of activity. Very late Gorgone Checkerspot.

I found another Elusive Clubtail and a Variegated Meadowhawk for the icing on the cake!

Despite cool temps the sun was out and so were the butterflies, mainly on still lots of nectar sources in garden areas.

Sunny, but very breezy with temperatures in the lower 50s.

Very windy! One of the American Ladies was small and fresh.