northeast-flora-and-fauna

I've neglected this blog recently; the past few days have been busy: In preparation of the approaching Duke Farms Butterfly Count, on Thursday I was "scouting" the property so I could alert the counters to concentrate on the more promising areas. On Friday I was helping the Raritan Headwaters Association to remove invasive plants around some bush/tree plantings at the Fox Hill Preserve. On Saturday I spent a couple hours at Duke Farms at their Outdoor Education station (primarily) talking to people about fireflies, then did some more "butterfly scouting". On Sunday we had the actual Duke Farms Butterfly Count, which left me a little worn out after 6 hours walking around the property. On Monday morning, I did my usual Steward Volunteer assignment, in this case helping to remove mostly invasive plants around one of their containment fences. We encountered a lot of the "usual suspect" butterflies on Sunday; I suspect the most abundant butterfly we found w...

This Eastern Tiger Swallowtail dropped by to imbibe a bit of nectar back in July, allowing me to get a couple pictures. This is perhaps the largest of the commonly spotted butterflies here in New Jersey; large individuals can even be giant sized (or at least about the size of the Giant Swallowtail ). They do have some look alikes , though I suspect that in my area if you see any butterfly that looks like this, you've got an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. My guess is that this fella was drinking nectar from a Wild Bergamot , a native wildflower that's very popular within the pollinator community. Though you can find these butterflies in the middle of a meadow, females lay eggs on trees so edge areas are probably a little better area to find them. July 18, 2021 at Scherman Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary July 18, 2021 at Scherman Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary Photo 148187961, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)