Avian Adventures, Blue Ridge Birders, Community Programs, Event, SWVA
Annabelle Muriano
Help Scientists by Collecting Data with the ...

For four days each February, birdwatchers of every skill level can participate in a global event for the love and wellbeing of birds.

Help Scientists by Collecting Data with the Great Backyard Bird Count
School Programs
Lisa Benish
Science In Nature Program: Session II

Join us October 14th through November 18th (one day per week) for Session II

Science In Nature Program: Session II
Naturalist Gift Guide
BRDC, Admin
A Naturalist's Book List

With all of the wonderful apps available, it is still a good idea to have a shelf of guides to call on.  We love paging through them while planning our next exploration, exploring their beautiful illustrations, and carrying our favorites with us for quick reference.

A Naturalist's Book List
Galax Enrichment Program
BRDC, Admin
Galax Enrichment Week - Primitive Technology

BRDC recently hosted a Primitive Technology course as part of Galax Middle School Enrichment Week. The students were engaged with a variety of hands-on activities that connected them to skills used by early American Indians and materials found in their backyards.

Galax Enrichment Week - Primitive Technology
Book Club
Anonymous
(July 2014) 4. The Sixth Extinction: An ...

"Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs."

(July 2014) 4. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kolbert

"viceroy"

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Butterflies of MOW, Approximation 1

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Last week I had the good fortune of being able to roam some highland fields. I spent most of my time in Mouth of Wilson, VA., a cultural and ecological crossroads. A variety of lifeways and pathways meet at this locality, steered by the geology and its mason, the New River. Along Wilson Creek just upstream from its mouth at the New River, summer wildflower meadows abound. This arterial waterway charts its coarse up and up, finding a multitude of spring heads upon Mount Rogers and lesser surrounding mountains and hills.

The following is a list of butterflies observed immediately along Wilson Creek in Mouth of Wilson from August 24-26, 2010. I still don't haven't ventured into the realm of skippers, so this list is far short of complete. One swampy area in particular was dancing with a variety skippers.

Eastern comma
Viceroy
Monarch
Black swallowtail
Eastern tiger swallowtail
Red spotted purple
Pipevine swallowtail
Cabbage white
Common buckeye
Silvery checkerspot
Pearl crescent
Great spangled fritillary
Meadow fritillary
Eastern tailed-blue
Wild indigo duskywing
Northern pearly eye
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What b'fly is that?

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The real secret to learning new species of animals and plants is study and repetition, but one thing that works especially well is to focus on the 10 commonest species within each group you are trying to learn. Another is to examine the species that closely resemble each other and figure out to tell them apart. The monarch-resembling group of butterflies can be difficult at first (monarch, queen. soldier, viceroy, gulf fritillary) but there are some clues that will help. For example look at the butterfly in the photo that I took recently at Myakka State Forest. It is reddish-orange with black veins, a little darker and smaller than a monarch; it flies more erratically and is often seen around wetlands with willows. Note especially the dark line that crosses the main veins in the hindwings- a unique and distinctive feature of the VICEROY butterfly, a Muellerian mimic that is also distasteful to birds due to its diet of willows, but less so than the monarch whose caterpillar feeds on milkweeds.
An even more difficult group of similarly appearing butterflies are swallowtails & others that are black, blue and yellow and mimic the toxic pipevine swallowtails. Isn't it amazing how these groups of mimics have evolved, and how hard they make it to learn to identify butterflies?
-Bill Dunson
Englewood, FL