Schooley Mill Park Butterflies; Another Warm November Day

As the unseasonable warm trend continued, I decided to visit Schooley Mill Park yesterday, Nov. 5. With its abundant wildflowers, this park had been a good place to find butterflies earlier this year. Temperature was about 75 F when I arrived; sunny with some cloud cover. However, it was also breezy, which I think kept the number of butterflies down. Total of five species found, also reported to our Howard County butterfly survey:

1 Sachem
2 Orange Sulphur
1 Variegated Fritillary
3 Pearl Crescent
2 Common Buckeye

The linked photos are pinned to the general area of the park where I found those individuals. Others were seen around the park.

After Schooley Mill Park, I drove up to the Howard County Conservancy at Mount Pleasant. This is usually a great place to find butterflies. (It is included in the list of noted places to observe in Butterflies of the Mid-Atlantic by Blakney and Gallagher.) By the time I was there, temperature was closer to 80 F, but breeze persisted and was quite gusty at times. Other than a probable lone pearl crescent flitting low over the mowed grass trail ahead of me, this visit to the Conservancy turned up no butterflies.

Posted on 06 de novembro de 2022, 01:23 PM by cgkoonce