Early Spring?

[58chevy]

The Ice Age is over. Temps now around 80F. A few butterflies are out, but not many. I hope the week of freezing temperatures didn't do too much damage to the the spring brood.

[Paul K]

Three more months and I will see P.rapae, I’m so excited and look forward to it. If we are lucky ( which is unusual ) two and a half months.

[leptraps]

I just looked in the Bait Trap in my back yard. One Vanessa atalanta. It was an over wintering adult. Some what worn. There were four (4) Lithophanae and a lone wing worn female of Zale galbanata.

It has been some times since I checked any of my Bait Traps in Aurora, the Mantua wetlands and the forest around Camp Ashbury.

I miss Kentucky!

Just checked the long term Aurora, Ohio weather forecast. The last two weeks in March will have above average temperatures.

[kkarns]

Gearing up as well here in Ohio.  Beginning to gather up rearing material for Coleoptera...I predict a good year, at least from a mental perspective! 

I am considering 2020 as the year that never happened! Lol.

[bandrow]

Mar 13, 2021 5:24:41 GMT -8 kkarns said:

Gearing up as well here in Ohio.  Beginning to gather up rearing material for Coleoptera...I predict a good year, at least from a mental perspective! 

I am considering 2020 as the year that never happened! Lol.

I'm looking forward to this field season as well. I get my first vaccination shot this coming Monday, so by April I'll have two new holes in my arm and will be more comfortable with the idea of traveling. I have a severe data-gap from 2020 and need to balance that with lots of 2021 bugs!


And kkarns - I just received my permits to collect at Ohoopee Dunes sometime during a period from late April to end of June - so go get poked and we can talk about heading south!

Cheers!
Bandrow

[yorky]

Freshly hatched lepidoptera will be flying in the UK in a couple of weeks. After spending most of 2020 with long covid I am looking forward to a collecting trip or two.

[livingplanet3]

I'm seeing more signs of spring here, every day. Pear trees are blooming now; they ordinarily would have been doing so a couple of weeks ago, but that winter storm that reached well into the southern US a month ago slowed things down a bit (though not by much). The elm trees here were starting to leaf in mid-February, but are having to start over; their initial leaves got freeze-dried. I see some new leaves starting out on my Buddleja davidii, too. I have several cultivars of this species, that I began working with a couple of years ago. They start blooming in May, and attract butterflies more strongly than anything else I've ever seen. A few photos -

[kkarns]

One step ahead of ya Bob!  I have had both my vaccinations a few months ago and so has Cathy!...benefit of working in health care...lets go!

[58chevy]

My back yard looks like a death zone after the "big freeze". All the tropical & semi-tropical plants, which easily survive normal winters, appear to be dead. I'm hoping they'll eventually sprout new leaves but nothing so far. At least the butterflies, including swallowtails, are flying again.

[livingplanet3]

Mar 14, 2021 8:43:39 GMT -8 58chevy said:

My back yard looks like a death zone after the "big freeze". All the tropical & semi-tropical plants, which easily survive normal winters, appear to be dead. I'm hoping they'll eventually sprout new leaves but nothing so far. At least the butterflies, including swallowtails, are flying again.

Sorry to hear about the possible loss of some of your plants; yes, I would imagine that more sensitive things such as palms, cycads, Bougainvillea, etc. might not have fared so well from that Arctic blast. All of the oleander and pampas grass here in North TX was completely freeze-dried. Not necessarily dead, but killed back to the roots, probably. A neighbor has a couple of Mexican fan palms that don't look very good; would be really unfortunate if they didn't survive - they're around 25 feet tall, and probably at least 25 years old.

One of the major reasons I chose to focus on Buddleja in setting up a butterfly garden was its hardiness. In TX, it's semi-deciduous, but in colder climates, this species typically freezes back completely to the ground in winter. Fortunately, it can easily regenerate back up to nearly full size the following spring / summer. In fact, annually pruning them back to maintain a balanced shape actually helps promote better blooming. In spring, the first of the new growth always starts up from the base of the plant.

[leptraps]

One of the benefits of living in north east Ohio. Yesterday I was cleaning up my flower beds, raking up the last of the leaves. And then I awoke at 5AM to drain the dragon, looked out my window to find 3 inches of new snow on the ground. By this time tomorrow, holding steady at 27°F.

I will continue to remove specimens from spreading boards and and place them in my collection.

Snow should be a curse word!

I need to move back to Florida.

[leptraps]

Never trust that groundhog- besides, I think that only matters east of the Mississippi (ok, I cant spell that one, and I'm not looking it up)

I only learned to spell Mississippi after living in Greenwood, Mississippi for 5 years.

In Mississippi winter began sometime after Christmass, you caught a cold with the creeping crud. It did not go away until Mid-April and you sweated until Christmas.

There were some very nice Catocala and Papaipema moths in Mississippi,

[exoticimports]

We have snow on the ground this morning.

[kkarns]

And kkarns - I just received my permits to collect at Ohoopee Dunes sometime during a period from late April to end of June - so go get poked and we can talk about heading south!

Cheers!
Bandrow

See you already went! Oh well...can take this off my "things to do" list

[bandrow]

Kkarns - nope - haven't left PA except for a few days with Helen at Lake Hope in early April for our birthdays/anniversary (and wood collecting!)... I'll call and catch up this weekend...

Cheers!
Bandrow