Follow our adventures living in the woods and meeting wild ones. This year we’re alternating between poisonous plants and continuing to write about pollinators and their host plants.
Dear Wood Folk, The dreamy duskywing (erynnis icelus) is another skipper butterfly. We’ve covered the more orangey skippers in a previous diary, and the endangered mottled duskywing in another. Dreamy has a close lookalike in the more commonly seen Juvenal’s duskywing (erynnis juvenalis) and the rarer columbine duskywing (erynnis lucilius). All three of which are found … [Read more…]
Dear Wood Folk, In Ontario, we have three crescent butterflies. The two main crescents are the northern crescent (phyciodes cocyta) and pearl crescent (phyciodes tharos), who may or may not be the same species, although the current line of thought is that they are separate species. That might flip flop. And third is the tawny … [Read more…]
Dear Wood Folk, Silvery blue (glaucopsyche lygdamus) butterflies are easily mistaken for similarly blue azures, who were featured in our diaries earlier this year. I almost included the silvery blue caterpillar (below in this feature) in the azure diary by mistake! The slivery blue are easier to find with their wings spread open than azures. … [Read more…]
Dear Wood Folk, For readers in Haliburton area, it’s not impossible we could see a black swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes). Their range mostly stops in southern Ontario, often seen in Peterborough. But they are occasionally spotted around Haliburton. Because it’s such a longshot and I don’t spend much time to the south, I don’t have a … [Read more…]
Dear Wood Folk, Hairstreaks (subfamily Theclinae) are distinct looking tiny butterflies that usually have a small protruding “hair” at the end of their tail. Today we’re focusing on the coral hairstreak (satyrium titus) and its very cherry host plants, but we’ll also give a brief summary of the rest of Ontario’s hairstreaks and the various … [Read more…]
Dear Wood Folk, Around cottage country, Ontario we have numerous fritillary butterflies. From a distance these bright orange butterflies are sometimes mistaken for monarchs. Fritillary can be a hard word to retain; at least it was for me. (Frit frit frit.. (h)illary. Repeat 10 times. Maybe picture a Hillary you know “freaking lit”.) Our most … [Read more…]