Allen's Pond MAS (9/17)

On Sunday I went out to Allen's Pond to participate in their annual butterfly count. We broke up in groups to cover the entire sanctuary. My group was pretty small... just me, Erik Nielsen, Ron Hamburger, and the sanctuary's grassland expert, Lauren Miller. Our area was the Allen Neck Trails. We carpooled to the property and started our search. Other than the Cabbage Whites and Sulphurs (which were prevalent) we saw Least Skipper, Monarchs, and Pearl Crescents. After hiking for a couple of minutes, Erik spotted out our target species, a White M Hairstreak. We actually lucky enough to find three of them during our walk.

The field was also filled with other insects. There were hundreds of Praying Mantises in the field. One was so big that when I spotted it in flight in the corner of my eye I thought that it was a bird. The mantises flew away from the path as we walked by. Unfortunately this wasn't the best choice for one individual. It got entangled in a spider's web and, as we watched, a Banded Argiope emerged from the grass and wrapped up the poor mantis. I took some cool shots of the action.

The end of the trail brought us to a large meadow. There we were able to add Black Swallowtail, Cloudless Sulphur, and Common Buckeye to our species list.

After finishing our count, we headed back to the sanctuary to meet up with the second group and have lunch. After eating everyone headed over to the nearby Sylvan Nursery. Even though the nursery was closed, they were gracious enough to let us in anyhow. All the plants and flowers were beautiful. I just wish that I could have bought some. As for the butterflies, they were actually pretty sparse. We did find one Red Admiral though.

We finished the day with some birding at Gooseberry Point. A raft of Common Eider and Double Creasted Cormorants we diving for food and we spotted an Osprey soaring over the water. But, the shorebirds were almost non-existant. Right before we headed for home we did stumble upon a small group of Ruddy Turnstones with a Semi-palmated Plover and Black-bellied Plover mixed in.