Our Natural Adventures

Tag: native-plants

  • August 2, 2025 Adventures

    August 2, 2025 Adventures

    We hit a couple places today because the weather was so perfect! High 70’s with a bit of a breeze and full sun. You can’t really beat that for a butterfly day.

    We started that day at the Westfield Conservation Area in Taunton, MA. It’s only the second time we have gone there, and really we were just checking for wooly alder aphids on the alder trees to see if there could be a population of Harvester butterflies. There were none, so we have to assume there is not a population there. There were a few species flying, but honestly not as much as I had thought there would be. Probably the best thing we saw was an Evergreen Bagworm moth caterpillar (photo above). We had seen the cocoons quite often, but never the caterpillar. That was pretty cool. Butterflies were few and far between, with a couple Monarchs, Wood Nymph, Peck’s Skipper, Least Skipper being the best sightings. The area is quite nice with very well maintained trails though.

    We continued on from there to Borden Colony in Raynham, MA. This is a place we have visited a handful of times over the years. It almost always has several flying species but they are usually hard to get at for a photo. This was not the case today because of the land management that has gone on there this year. I am guessing they were mowing down all invasive grape and other species of plants. This made all the overgrown areas grow back as beautiful fields which were full of flowering Common Milkweed and Joe Pye Weed, Clover, etc. Great butterfly conditions!

    Borden Colony field
    Milkweed at Borden Colony

    Although the butterflies were all basically common species, the numbers were nice and high. Sulphurs topped the chart at well over 50 (probably over 100) with a mix of mainly clouded sulphurs with some orange sulphurs in there too.

    Orange Sulphur
    Courting Clouded Sulphurs (yellow male and white form female)

    There were also over 20 Monarchs, 8 Common Buckeyes, several Eastern tailed blues, 2 Eastern Tiger Swallowtails (first of the year for us) a Red-banded Hairstreak, a Viceroy, etc. All common, but great to see!

    Tomorrow’s weather looks to be a bit of the same so we will see what adventures we can get into!

    Red-banded Hairstreak
    Snowberry Clearwing Moth
    Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
    Common Buckeye
  • July 12, 2025 – A tale of Two Fields

    July 12, 2025 – A tale of Two Fields

    It was the best of fields, it was the worst of fields. Well, something like that anyways.

    I had the amazing opportunity to visit the Joint Base Cape Cod, a once bustling military base, but now an active shared base with the Army, Coast Guard, National Guard, etc. This enormous parcel of land, situated in the center of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, is an example of just how to manage land for different habitats and do it well!

    Our target species for the day was the Acadian Hairstreak. In Massachusetts, this is most likely the last place that these butterflies exist. Although we found none in 2024, they are relatively predictable to be in the same location every year. Having seen none last year, we were a bit concerned about this year, but were pretty quickly rewarded in our search with one individual, and it was a beauty!

    Acadian Hairstreak

    Along with this excellent find, we found several other butterfly species like Edward’s Hairstreaks, Coral Hairstreaks, Monarchs, several Skipper species, etc. The place is loaded with some great tiger beetles, bees, birds of all types, etc. We also were able to find a few Walsh’s Digger Bees. Just a bee, right? Wrong. This location, through the great environmental restoration and management is one of two (the other is on Martha’s Vineyard island in MA) locations that this bee exists, east of Michigan. They are so incredibly specific where they live! They need a location that is sandplain grassland with yellow wild indigo growing. JBCC offers the perfect habitat for them and it is no surprise that they are there.

    Walsh’s Digger Bee (Anthophora walshii)

    That was the best of fields…

    From there, I went on to visit Nasketucket Bay State Reservation in Mattapoisett, MA. Here I found the worst of fields.

    This location once was a fantastic place to see butterflies all season long. Mismanagement of the property has allowed more non-native invasive plants to take over the “pollinator field” and all along the entire walking trail system. Finding a butterfly is like a needle in a haystack. I did manage to see one Monarch and a couple of skippers and an eastern cottontail rabbit, but not much else. I am always hopeful when I go here, but lately it is a let down. My last guided walk of the season is there on Wednesday and I don’t particularly look forward to it. Hopefully I can show people what NOT to do and teach them about butterflies more than show them butterflies.

    Little Wood Satyr – Nasketucket
    Eastern Cottontail – Nasketucket