Butterfly Workshop Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary, Beaverdam Road and Craggy Gardens, Asheville, NC Saturday, August 13, 2005

  With all of the daily rain showers this summer, at least it did not rain on our day of butterflying. After a slowish start at Beaver Lake, we warmed up with a flurry of skippers, including Clouded, Zabulon and Little Glassy-wing. Talk of jumping in with both feet! Skipper identification can be challenging, especially as they sit still for such short periods of time. Thankfully the gardens at "Ventures Central" were full of larger butterflies with Eastern Tiger Swallowtails being the most obvious. A few Monarchs were very nice to see and other highlights were Common Buckeye, Zarucco Duskywing and several Gray Hairstreaks. We dodged a shower on our way up to Craggy Gardens where the roadside flowers were spectacular. At first there did not seem to be a lot around, but closer examination found several Painted Ladies, a single Peck's Skipper and last but not least, a Red Admiral for those that stayed until the very end.