Flutter-bys of 2012

A much more accurate name, don't you think? I'll do a catch-up post in a bit but I've wanted to make this post for a while now so here it is.

In the spring/summer of 2012 I started to pay more attention to butterflies, thanks mostly to working on Louisiana Waterthrush stuff with Jody Allair who is a rather avid lepidopterist. Who knew there were so many species in Ontario? I think my butterfly list sits around 60ish now but that could be way off...haven't tallied it up and have some un-ID'd ones as well. Anyway, here are some pics from last year, with a bunch of ID requests! Help appreciated and feel free to correct me on anything!

****EDIT: some ID's have been resolved - thanks Kirk!

Northern Broken-Dash??? - near Long Point, July 7

Delaware Skipper - rare 2nd brood (October in Guelph)

Two-spotted Skipper

European Skippers

Tawny-edged Skippers

Dun Skipper

American Copper

American Snout

Appalachian Brown??

Banded Hairstreak

Black Swallowtail

Buckeye

Cabbage White

Clouded Sulphur

Common Sootywing (only pic I got of this species!)

Common Wood-Nymph

Dun Skipper

Eastern Tailed-Blue

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Edward's Hairstreak

European Skipper

Eyed Brown

Giant Swallowtail

Harvester

Hobomok Skipper

Little Yellow

Long Dash

Northern Crescent (?)

Northern Pearly-Eye

Orange Sulphur

Pearl Crescent

 again

Question Mark

Red Admiral

 

Red-spotted Purple

Silver-spotted Skipper

Summer Azure (?) - June 8, Long Point

Tawny Emperor

Variegated Fritillary

 Little Wood-Satyr (Viola's?) - July 7 near Long Point

White Admiral

Wild Indigo Duskywings (new for the LP butterfly count)

Spring

Spring is definitely in the air here in Guelph - the first blackbirds are arriving and the resident winter birds are all out singing on this warm sunny day! Reuven, Josh and I cruised around for a few hours today with our only real highlight (other than the early migrant blackbirds) being a singing Carolina Wren at Mountsberg.

This Red-winged Blackbird showed up at my feeder yesterday and was singing off and on all day - today there are at least three. By tomorrow they should be all over the place!

The rest of it

Some other happenings over the last month in my life:

A late January trip with the Wildlife Club to Algonquin Provincial Park, a place I had never been before. It was a great weekend in the outdoors of hiking, birding and general shenaniganizing in the snow!

Great Gray Owl at dusk

 Hand feeding a Gray Jay (Josh V's hand)

Most of the group

A solid week and a half of being cooped up in my house or at school, trying desperately to finish a (large) stack of work before my leave of absence...

A few days in Kingston visiting my brother and finishing up said stack of work.

A 12-day field course based at Queen's University Biological Station, with field trips to Amherst Island and Algonquin Park + Kanata. An awesome way to earn a credit, meeting some cool people and getting to experience a bit more of Ontario.

Amherst on a blustery day

 An American Pipit braving an eastern Ontario winter

Cool ice formations abounded

 "Greenland" Common Redpoll

 Great Gray Owl take 2 - second time in Algonquin this year!

 Up close and personal with a Boreal Chickadee - this guy was hopping around at our feet

 Snow Buntings were kind of odd to see in the middle of the boreal

Specimen prep, I'll leave out all the gory details

A nice Harris's Sparrow south of Guelph that decided to stay until I returned from Kingston. New for a multitude of lists, the most important of which being Ontario (#335) and Canada (#407), while also being the first adult I have seen.

That brings us up to the present...job applications, school work and scheming about the future, while eagerly anticipating spring migration and all the potential that comes with it.

Catching up...

 It's been a while since my last post, but I haven't been slacking off, I promise! Over the weekend I'll post a few catch-up posts to get me back on track for spring migration, which has apparently already started with the first waterfowl and Killdeer arriving (today is the first official day of spring if you're a birder!). Anyway, to kick things off here are two drawings I did back in January when I should have been studying or something.

Snowy Owl photoshoot

A few weekends ago a group of us Guelphites (plus Alvan and Mira from Waterloo) headed over to Niagara to see what was around. We had a fair bit of success along the river, with Fish Crow, Black Vulture, 8 species of gulls and 4(!) Purple Sandpipers. Most of these were pretty distant so I didn't really bother taking the camera out but afterward we headed inland to St. Catharine's where a Snowy Owl had been hanging out. When we got there, a bunch of photographers were standing around and had just lured the owl in with a mouse. After a quick scope view we decided to head out but our other car was still there so I went back to inform them of our decision to keep going. Right when I did that, the owl came back in for another mouse so I decided to stay for a minute and take advantage of the situation. Although I did get some nice shots out of it, I'm still not sure I condone the baiting of owls - especially right beside a road where they can be hit by cars.... Anyway, here's the pics:

Hovering right in front of us!