I had not been to this site to look for butterflies before, but I heard there were Baltimore Checkerspots here. I spent several hours there on Sunday morning, walking around the entire area. It was hot and sunny, perfect for butterflies. While I did not find any Baltimore Checkerspots, I did however have an amazing day! I found 25 butterfly species, including a county first sighting of Acadian Hairstreak, which I found 3 of. I also saw a very rare stray Zebra Swallowtail. It zipped by about 50′ from me. I got a great look at it and took off running after it. I was hoping it would stop, but it never did, continuing north. That is a very cool butterfly, one I have seen many times in Florida and once last year in Dane County at the Olbrich Gardens. I had good numbers of many other butterflies, but I did not have very many grass skippers. I think that is because it was rather windy. They are so tiny and dart around like little fighter jets, making them hard to follow in the moving grasses and flowers. I was able to manage decent photos of about half of the butterflies seen. Most of them were very uncooperative. If you would like to see my entire checklist for the morning, you can click on the link below. Wisconsin Butterflies is a wonderful website, with great information about the species that can be seen in the state. The photos below are from the morning of 7/9. Enjoy!
Sighting for July 9 — wisconsinbutterflies.org
Acadian Hairstreak (first county sighting)
Appalachian Brown
Bronze Copper
Clouded Sulphur
Common Buckeye
Common Wood-Nymph
Delaware Skipper
Eastern Tailed-Blue
Eyed Brown
Smoky Eyed Brown (subspecies)
Least Skipper
Monarch
Pearl Crescent
Red Admiral
Excellent photos as always! I did not know some of these could be found in our area.
Thank you! Yes, we get a lot of butterflies in Milwaukee County. This place is kind of a hidden gem, that I did not know about until this year!