Date: 10/26/26 5:01 pm From: Harry LeGrand (via carolinabirds Mailing List) <carolinabirds...> Subject: Re: Some butterflies in western Raleigh, Wake Co., NC -- Oct. 26
Woops. Sorry -- I meant to send this to CarolinaLEPS listserve, so birders
can and should delete this!
Harry LeGrand
On Mon, Oct 26, 2026 at 6:23 PM Harry LeGrand <hlegrandjr...> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I waited out the NC State Fair for 11 days (Oct. 15-25) so that parking
> and travel in western Raleigh would be back to normal. As the weather has
> been a broken record for the last 5-6 months -- hardly any clouds, mild
> temps now (upper 60s), and light wind with sunburn potential -- I tried out
> the NC Art Museum grounds from about 1-2 pm. The Frost Asters are in full
> bloom and cover many hundreds of square yards near the sculpture hill area
> and the musical swings, but I estimated barely 1 butterfly for every 10
> ,000 flowers! Here are my disappointing totals, clearly a "casualty" of
> the year-long drought.
>
> Sleepy Orange 6
> CLOUDED SULPHUR 1 beautiful and fresh, infrequent here
> Orange Sulphur 5 also fresh
> Cloudless Sulphur 1
> Cabbage White 1 infrequent here
> Monarch 2
> Variegated Fritillary 5
> Common Buckeye 6
> Common Checkered-Skipper 35 surprisingly numerous
> Fiery Skipper 20
>
> Sadly, I missed "gimmes" like Pearl Crescent, Clouded Skipper, and maybe
> Ocola Skipper. I could not find a Southern Skipperling around the hill, nor
> at the nearby State Fair offsite parking lot where it has been common up to
> a few weeks ago. I'll check out Raulston Arboretum either tomorrow or
> Wednesday at midday or early afternoon, as I have not been there since
> before the Fair opened on Oct. 15. As the staff water the plants there, and
> there are plantings of Lantana and a good variety of other nectar plants, I
> hope to do better there, as long as the plants haven't been uprooted for
> the season!
>
> Harry LeGrand
> Raleigh
>
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