duskywings ~ 04/17/14 ~ Chews Ridge

sleepy duskywing
Erynnis brizo lacustra
(Shapiro and Tenney)

mournful duskywing
Erynnis tristis
(Shapiro and Tenney)

propertius duskywing
Erynnis propertius
(Shapiro and Tenney)

I find many skippers (Hesperiidae), including the dark duskywings (Erynnis spp.), extremely difficult to tell apart.  I'm conferring with Chris Tenney before I finish placing embedded IDs on these pictures.  More to come...

ps 04/21/14 - Chris confirmed my IDs.  He said we also saw pacuvius duskywing (Erynnis pacuvius callidus, Shapiro, Tenney), but I probably mistook them for the similarly dark sleepy duskywing since ours in CA don't have the white fringe.  These are all hilltoppers for the most part, and we found them either right at the top at the base of the lookout or in a fairly limited radius around the summit.  I don't have any helpful ID notes to offer, because Chris basically pointed them all out to me.

woodland skipper ~ 07/24/13 ~ Wilder Ranch

woodland skipper

Ochlodes sylvanoides

Two little skippers sitting on a leaf, k, i, s, s...  Right before I took this picture, these two were flirting and dancing in the air.  Well, at least that's my guess.  It could have been a territorial fight?  However, I'm further guessing the individual on the bottom of the frame is a male, while the one above him is a female.  Look at the color of the antennal hooks.  The bottom one's is orange, while the top's is black. I couldn't find any references specifically to woodland skippers and sexual dimorphism in antenna color, but I did find a couple references stating they are apparently the most common butterflies to be found this time of year in western North America.  That's good to know.

Despite my love for butterflies, I generally tend to write off skippers.  Partly it's because I find them so difficult to ID on the wing.  There are so many different kinds of little orange and brown skippers out there, many found in the same location, perhaps only separated by temporal spaces.  I wonder why.  I mean, why aren't there many different kinds of buckeye butterflies, e.g.?  Or swallowtails?

Actually, before looking this ID up, I never heard of woodland skippers.  They're new to me.  For those who know of my proclivity for Lepidoptera, I first use Jeffrey Glassberg's Butterflies through Binoculars: The West, then confirm details online at sites I've embedded in the ID above.  This book is just the right level for most people who simply like butterflies.  Another Lepidopterist complained to me about the accuracy of his books, but they're field guides, for goodness sakes, not exhaustive checklists.  Jeffrey Glassberg broke new ground 20 years ago with his first Butterflies through Binoculars book covering the Boston-New York-Washington Region, which has since been reformatted into The East.  Without ever having met him (well, maybe I did once, but I don't recall specifically), he has influenced my appreciation for nature.  Thank you, Mr. Glassberg.

fiery skipper ~ 09/11/10 ~ Monterey

female fiery skipper on lantana
Hylephila phyleus on Lantana sp.
Verbenaceae

Finally, there's some color to my blog! We had so many days of drippy, wet fog here for more than a month that my mood has been in the damper, as evidenced by my infrequent and grumpy posts as of late. There are several activities going about town this weekend. After our respective morning runs and power walks, we pumped up the air in our bicycle tires and tootled around to check out the Triathlon at Lover's Point, Cherry's Jubilee in Cannery Row, and the Festa Italia in Monterey's Custom House Plaza. Sigh, it was a good day.

I guess I should comment about the skipper and flower. I'm 90% sure of the lepidopteran ID. Like crescent butterflies there is much variation within skipper species, not to mention sexual dimorphism. As for the lantana, while we have a couple native species according to Calflora, this one was in a container and so it goes under my * garden flowers label. It's apparently a very popular garden plant to attract butterflies and the like.

Hope you're having a good weekend, too.