Skippers and other butterflies at Wildcat Ridge
Skippers are the "gulls" of the butterfly world and each year I find myself having to re-learn the ones I thought I knew to refresh my field identification skills. It's quite an identification challenge and there's always some doubt separating certain species. On Saturday, Wildcat Ridge had a few different skipper species skipping around along with some more familiar species of butterfly. The captions below have some ID hints for some of those skippers. Enjoy!
This is a female Northern Broken-dash, identified from this angle bu the pattern of white spots. The male has a broken black stigma on the upper forewing, hence the name. This is one that's a bit easier to ID from the underside.
Delaware Skipper - it's a plain orange underneath with an orange fringe.
A bit easier to ID - a Pearl Crescent
A little skipper loving going on here - these are Little Glassywings. One nice field mark is the white at the base of the antenna club.
Eastern Tailed Blue - love the striped antennae! 
This oddity caused some discussion. It's a prepupal caterpillar of a Spicebush Swallowtail.
Great Spangled Fritillary
Yet another Northern Broken-dash - here you can clearly see the hint of the "3" shape on the hindwing. In this case, it's a backwards 3 and looks more like a crescent moon.Hope you liked them!
9 comments:
Ah, skippers. I haven't really figured them out yet.
Very cool Spicebush swallowtail caterpillar! Looks like it's getting ready to form a chrysalis - my daughter and I are hoping to find one so we can watch the pupation.
Great shots, and thanks for the very-helpful ID tips on the butterflies!
-Mike
Like 'em? I loved them! The eastern blue is a beauty.
Great photos! I'll be on the lookout for that 3/moon shape on the las one. I only learn about butterflies and moths when I see them (or when I read blogs like yours). I haven't taken the time to study field guide.
The blue is gorgeous - I never noticed the striped antenna.
"Skippers are the "gulls" of the butterfly world." That one's going in my personal book of noteworthy quotations.
John, glad you liked my statement! Here's a conversation topic for the next time you're drinking beers with a group of naturalists: Which is toughest - identifying gulls, skippers, shorebirds, or damselflies?
It's gulls...okay...okay...it's skippers...no wait... it's got to be shorebirds...don't think so?...alright then...it's damselflies. No more beers.
Patrick - crazy-deep question about the toughest to identify. I suspect the only answer is, "whichever you happen to be trying to id at the moment."
;-)
-Mike
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