by Harlan Ratcliff
May 1-15, 2011
We have had a couple of weeks that were really bad for butterflies--high temperatures barely reaching 50 degrees F (and some days not even that). Hopefully by the time you read this the cold, rainy weather will be gone for a while. If it is not, we should not expect to see many butterflies.
Actually, I think all we need is a few warm sunny days in a row, and we will see some. The butterflies will be around. They are just waiting for us to take off our winter coats and mittens.
Once again, Aaron Brees came through with a sighting--he reported a fairly number of meadow fritillaries, Bolloria bellona in Wayne County. Meadow fritillaries can be a little difficult to figure out. I don't see them very often but I have occasionally run across them in fairly large numbers. Fritillaries typically use different species of violets as their caterpillar host plants. The meadow fritillary is the smallest of that particular group in Iowa.
Given the cold, wet weather pattern we have had, I expect that we will only see small numbers of butterflies in the next couple of weeks. However, the diversity should be fairly good. We still may see some of the butterflies that over-winter as adults: Question mark, Polygonia interrogationis eastern comma, P. comma, mourning cloak, Nymphalis antiopa, etc. Butterflies that spend the winters in other life stages should start to show up as well--we will see cabbage butterflies, Pieris rapae, and spring azures, Celastrina ladon. The clouded and orange sulfurs, Colias philodece and C. eurytheme should start showing up soon. Tiger swallowtails, Papillo glaucus and black swallowtails, P. polyxenes should be making their first appearances within the next two weeks as well.
Eastern tailed-blues, Cupido comyntas, should start emerging soon. Males, with bright blue upper wing surfaces show up first. The females, with their gray-brown upper wings show up later. They can be present all summer long, and by the end of the summer they may be the most common butterfly in the state, although they are often overlooked because of their small size.
The weather does not seem to be too good for the migratory species this spring. I really don't expect to see many painted ladies, for example. However, several red admirals, Vanessa atalanta, at least one buckeye, Junio coenia,and one American snout butterfly, Libytheana carineta have already been seen this year. A posting on the Iowa Insects list by Paul suggested we should see monarchs, Danaus plexippus in Iowa within a day or two. They would be a welcome sight. I did find a pretty neat web site here that has an animated graphic of the first monarch sightings in the U.S. each year.
Viceroys, Limenitis archippus and red-spotted admirals, L. atrhemis will make their first appearances in about the middle of May. Some of the prettier skippers should start showing up as well--the silver spotted skipper, Epargyreus clarus, peck's skipper, Polites peckius, the hobomok skipper, Poanes hobomok, and the common sooty-wing, Pholisora catullus all could show up around the second week in May.
As a reminder, I have posted an easy-to use checklist to Iowa's butterflies here. It has page numbers for photographs of the butterflies that may make the guide books easier to use in the field. The most common butterflies are highlighted in gray.
So get out (assuming it will warm up enough) and see if you can find some butterflies.
by Harlan Ratcliff at
http://www.poweshiekskipper.org/forecasts.htm
