Another Butterfly Count, Another Dukes' and Miscellaneous

 Friday I toured around locally.  I was going to go for a walk at Mitchell's Bay, but it was raining in that area, so I headed back north!

Along the way, I saw a few Sandhill Cranes, ever so common anymore.

I went for a short walk at Reid again.  Broad-winged Skippers and a Dukes' were in the sedges as usual.

Dukes'

A couple of Royal River Cruisers were working the trail.  One decided to stop and hang around.

The walk at Peers Wetland revealed a Bronze Copper, not often seen there.

Saturday I went to south Chatham-Kent and checked out Keith McLean C. L., then Blenheim lagoons.

Nothing of note has been at McLean's this year other than the Lark Sparrow.  There is not much in the way of shorebird habitat either.  Lots of Marsh Wrens chattering in the reeds!

There is very good potential for a good heron type though!  Stay tuned...

The lagoons held lots of shorebirds.  I did a thorough search, but could not find anything of note, not even a Baird's Sandpiper.

Solitary Sandpiper

Today was the annual Clear Creek butterfly count.  Thankfully the weather forecast was wrong again, and it was a nice sunny day, albeit rather hot and humid.  We had a crazy amount of rain (again!) overnight.

I worked the Clear Creek nature reserve area with the Pye brothers as we do every year.  Cabbage Whites were in big numbers this year.  We had a good variety of other things, but in low numbers.  Some things like anglewings were virtually absent.  Monarchs were in pretty good numbers too.

Most of a Viceroy!

Red-spotted Purple

We found a total of eight Broad-winged Skippers, which was a good number.

Near the end of the quarry walk, another similar skipper flushed up.  Turned out to be a Dukes' Skipper!  This is a new location as far as I know for the species.

We also walked the Bury Cemetery trail where Northern Pearly-eyes were in good numbers.  No other "browns" though.

View beyond the cemetery

At lunch time, were checked out Clearville Park along the lake.  I am always interested in the little creek loop where the land goes to a point.

We also checked out the beach where Clear Creek flows out.  The creek was not flowing though due to build-up of sand.

Of course I kept an eye out for other things.  There were lots of odonates at the old quarry, but I did not spend much time looking.  Comet Darner should still be flying, but I did not see one.

Bluets included Double-striped.  These are uncommon tiny bluets that are difficult to photograph.  There were a number of them present.

I did not see any cicadas but there were some Cicada Killer Wasps buzzing around.

In the old pond at the back of the quarry, a Green Heron was preening.

Headed home early afternoon....