A wonderful article about Wild-Connections appeared in the Austin Statesman, and a side box of the article mentioned that the ABF was holding a butterfly walk at Barton Creek Greenbelt on Saturday April 24th. Such publicity is absolutely fantastic except for one little problem – the walk was schedule for Sunday the 25th – not the Saturday – because neither of the two walk leaders, Dan Hardy and Joe Lapp, could make it on Saturday. Dan and Joe fell into panic trying to figure out what to do.

Then Barbara Ribble summons Chris Durden to the rescue. Chris is Curator Emeritus of Entomology at the Texas Memorial Museum and is arguably the most knowledgeable butterfly expert in the Austin area. Chris readily accepted Barbara’s summons to lead an additional butterfly walk on Saturday.

Saturday comes and it is overcast and drizzling. Barbara, Chris and Robert Corbin arrive to butterfly in the rain. As they’re trying to decide whether to do the walk, the sun suddenly comes out. So off they go.

They had a wonderful time. They found butterflies, caterpillars and some great plants. Two falcate orangetip larvae were feeding on rock cress, and one giant swallowtail larva was feeding on wafer ash. Barbara brought the giant swallowtail larva home and raised it, and it’s now in the pupal stage. In all they had 17 species of adult butterflies, including a viceroy and a great purple hairstreak.

Sunday comes, and it’s Dan’s and Joe’s turn. It’s drizzling and overcast again. Barbara and Robert show up for Sunday too. Despite the rain, Theresa Bayoud and Lauren Bauer also show, not willing to let the rain stop them from going into the field, butterflies or not. So we do the magic chatting for a while to make the sun come out.

Only the sun does not come out for us on Sunday. We decided to go anyway, and we’re glad we did.

We did see butterflies, six species of adults to be exact. A few were flying, but most of them we saw because we scared them up, trouncing through the brush. Robert and Dan educated us on the various wildflowers and host plants we saw, so we kept quite occupied. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the rock cress they saw the day before. But we did find a goatweed leafwing caterpillar rolled in a croton leaf. The photo shows this caterpillar with leaf unrolled.

Seven people joined me on September 28 at the Nature Conservancy's Barton Creek Habitat Preserve, near Bee Cave. I am conducting a butterfly census of this property over the next few years. Luck was with us. A cold front had passed through the night before and the sky was clear and the temperature was perfect. Butterflies and dragonflies kept us busy. We worked a small creek across from the headquarters where Frostweed was full bloom. This area gave us good looks at Dusky-blue Hairstreak, Dun Skipper, Ocola Skipper, Southern Broken-Dash and Clouded Skipper. We had close-up looks at some of these after they were netted and put in a cler Petri dish.

A Silver-spotted Skipper caterpillar was hidden in a leaf nest in False Indigo, its favorite host plant along the Barton Creek. A mowed area around the headquarters building was surprisingly productive. Low, ground-hugging plants were attracting small skippers, including a Southern Skipperling, which is uncommon this far west. At the end of the day a Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak in the parking lot was the 32nd butterfly species.

Look for more field trips to this preserve in the future.

Participants: Sally Breed, Joe Lapp, John Kelly, Sheila Hargis, Roxie Rochat, Lois Schubert, Robert Corbin, and Dan Hardy