Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: DAILY BUTTERFLIES Page 24, 1 by TexasPuddyPrint

TexasPuddyPrint wrote:
Argggggggggggggggggh!!!

I missed it!!! I was at the NABA park on Sunday, 11-18-07 and put my butterfly brew on a couple of fence posts that border a ditch next to the wooden area of the park as well as put out cut up tangerines and more brew. I'd been walking around with friends for about four hours before I decided to head home to beat the rush hour traffic on the expressway. I'd literally walked by the posts and rope fenced area and saw a butterfly on the post along with a wasp - I was about a dozen feet away and thought...ho hum...another tawny emperor so I didn't go any closer or take any photos and I left the park.

When I got home and logged onto our local butterfly list server I read where a fellow butterflier sighted a One-Spotted Prepona (Archaeoprepona demophon) on a baited fence post. There is only one area where there are fence posts ARGGGGHHHH!!!!

Oh well, am so happy my bait recipe attracted a rare butterfly and that our NABA IB Park has a new butterfly record...and of course that the USA had another first record :o) woohooo!!!!!!

Here's a link to our local NABA website showing the new butterfly. The photos show the post with my bait :o)

http://www.naba.org/chapters/nabast/onespottedprepona.html

On another note...I went to the park yesterday and gave Ray, our park guy, more tangerines and a small bottle of butterfly brew to put out while I sat under the palapa and ate my lunch (I'd worked the midnight shift, got off at 8am went home, tried to sleep, gave up and drove to the park instead picking up lunch along the way).

At around 4pm yesterday a flock of not so common butterflies showed up. The Guatemalan Cracker, a Common Banner (which is not common!), two Ruby-Spotted Swallowtails, a Red Rim, several Malachites, several Silver Emperors, a Question Mark, Curved-Winged Metalmark, Mazan's Scallopwing, Glazed Pellicia and a Red-Lined Scrub Hairstreak???...which we were not able to get a photo of...it was too flighty, too tiny and we kept losing track of it.

We also had an Eight-Spotted Longtail and Erato Heliconian earlier in the week...but neither made an appearance when I was there.

Oh...and get this...someone started questioning (on our butterfly local list server postings) all the 'new' records and rare butterflies showing up. One guy says there are 'tweezer' markings on the One-Spotted Prepona and says someone is catching butterflies (from Mexico) and turning them loose near the park...or is afraid of getting caught by Customs and turning them loose right before they cross the checkpoints - that also border the river. Hence, a butterfly would follow the river and eventually come across one of parks.

Considering the Fall season is our peak time for finding rare butterflies and that other rarities and first US records are coming from other parks along the river areas...common sense would tell the idiot tossing out accusations that the pushing cool fronts, fluctuating weather/winds and the fact that we are putting out bait and fruit and there are more eyes looking means we're going to see and photograph more butterflies!!!

This is a photo of the Guatemalan Cracker (ventral view) using the same baited post that the 'prepona' used. No sign of the One-Spotted Prepona - we also saw several chachalakas (mexican pheasants) at the park - a few individual birds were on the bait logs and around the fruit stations eating the fruit - we're thinking perhaps one of those ate the Prepona - more so if it was sitting happily drunk feeding at my bait :o)

~ Cat

This message was edited Nov 22, 2007 11:31 AM