Butterfly Workshop 

Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary, Beaverdam Road
and Craggy Gardens, Asheville, NC 

Saturday, August 26, 2006

It was another "Carolina-blue" day here in the Mountains, but the butterflies decided to sleep in a little at our first stop at Beaver Lake. Maybe it was the heavy dew resulting in damp vegetation and few butterflies aside from the ubiquitous Zabulon Skipper. Needless to say, we got sidetracked and ended up studying and enjoying several dragonflies and damselflies. Thankfully Simon's garden was a little better and we spent some time walking amongst the flowers looking for new species. Best was a fresh, crisp Common Checkered-Skipper and a migrating Monarch or two among the Cabbage Whites and abundant Sachems. The mass of wildflowers at Craggy was a little disappointing, but we did add Eastern Comma, Common Buckeye, and best of all, 2 Harvesters. These uncommon butterflies seemed to be attracted to the mass of wooly aphids on the hawthorn branches. For those that stayed until the very end, we had a bonus in the shape of a warbler flock with Cape May, Worm-eating, Black-throated Blue and Tennessee being the highlights.