Jan-Feb 2003 Issue:
In This Edition:
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Coming Events; Happy New Year! |
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November Butterfly Report |
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Seeds Available; Meeting & Elections |
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Documenting with Photography; Conservation Forum; Monarch Larva Project |
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Miami Blue; Horseshoe Lake Count |
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... and more |
NABA's MISSION STATEMENT: *********************************************************** COMING EVENTS: Sat., Jan. 25, 2003, Insectarium - Sun., Feb. 23, 2003, Butterfly House - Wed. March 19. "Butterfly Gardening." One-session class taught by Dennis Bozzay at Meramec Community College from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Call (314) 984-7777 to register. Tuesday, March 25. "Local Butterflies: Habits and Habitats." First of two sessions. Part I focuses on the natural history, physiology and ecology of butterflies. Meramec Community College, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Call (314) 984-7777 to register. Sunday, March 30, 1:00 p.m: Annual Meeting of Members and Election of Officers and Directors, followed by a video presentation of St. Louis area butterflies by Jim Ziebol. If the weather is nice, after the program we will take a nature walk to look for early butterflies, spring wildflowers, and migrating songbirds. (See separate article). The meeting will be held in a classroom at the Visitors' Center of Busch Wildlife in St. Charles County. To get to Busch from St. Louis County, take I-64 (Hwy. 40) across the Missouri River bridge and exit at Hwy. 94. Go left (south) on Hwy. 94 approximately 1 mile to Hwy. D. Turn right on Hwy. D and go about 2 miles to the Busch Wildlife entrance, which is on your right. Turn right to enter Busch and at the T intersection, turn right and proceed to the Visitors' Center parking lot. Enter by the reception desk/gift shop (away from the concession stand). Tuesday, April 1. "Local Butterflies," Part II. The second session focuses on sight identification, teaches field marks of common local butterflies, offers tips on binoculars and field guides, and includes a video presentation. Meramec Community College, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. HAPPY NEW YEAR from Yvonne Homeyer: I hope that everybody had a joyous holiday season. Many of us got together in December at the Green Center for our holiday party and enjoyed the guided tour by Dianne Benjamin and Jane Schaefer of the Green Center's gardens, prairie, wetlands and woods. I am eagerly waiting for spring when the butterflies will be flying again, the wildflowers will be blooming and the songbirds will be returning to us for another year. Until then, we have indoor programs planned - one outing to the Insectarium at the Zoo and another at the Butterfly House (see Calendar). Our annual election will be combined with a video presentation on local butterflies - stay tuned for date and place. Starting in April, we will begin our Butterfly Walks and Counts. We have 14 field trips planned to 10 locations in Missouri and Illinois which are scheduled to coincide with the time when each location's special butterflies are most likely to be found. We will continue to improve and maintain the Jim Ziebol Butterfly Garden at Busch Wildlife and will again offer continuing education classes at Meramec Community College. The Butterfly Gardening class is new. (check calendar for details). While we have had many successes and accomplishments, there are new areas where we could venture if we had volunteers to take us there. I would like to see NABA-St. Louis share the excitement of butterflies with more young people. Last year, we participated in a Missouri Parks Association urban youth program at the Green Center and we will do so again, and Betty Manlin has continued to visit elementary schools. But we could do much more with students if we had additional volunteers. If you are interested in educating young people about butterflies and the natural world, please get in touch with me. I would like to thank each and every person serving on the Board of Directors for the wonderful job s/he is doing. We are here to serve you, the members, so we welcome your suggestions. We hope you enjoy our chapter activities for the coming year, and we hope to see many of you at our events. NABA HOLIDAY PARTY: Our NABA Holiday Party at The Green Center on December 14th was a treat in so many ways. First, about 20 NABA members and guests enjoyed the pleasure of one another's company. Second, the food was yummy and the ambiance was festive. Last but not least, we had a beautiful day for a tour of The Green Center's demonstration and learning gardens plus a hike to 26 acres of woods, prairie, and wetlands. Thanks to all who helped make the party so happenin'! *********************************************************** NOVEMBER BUTTERFLY REPORT by Yvonne Homeyer Butterflies had definitely slowed down by early November, with Orange Sulphurs, Buckeyes, and the Anglewings being the main species reported this month. The last Pearl Crescent reported was seen on 11/11 by Torrey Berger at Horseshoe Lake. Ron Goetz saw a Buckeye in his yard on 11/7 and an Orange Sulphur and Buckeye at Meramec on 11/8. Jeannie Moe found 4 Common Checkered-Skippers, 1 Comma and 4 Orange Sulphurs at Rockwoods on 11/7. On 11/9/02,Yvonne saw just 3 species at Little Creve Coeur Lake: Orange Sulphur, Cloudless Sulphur, and Buckeye, and that same day Jeannie reported 3 Orange Sulphurs at Shaw Nature Reserve. On 11/12, Orange Sulphur and E. Comma were reported by Ron Goetz in his yard. One Orange Sulphur was found at Riverlands on 11/14 and 4 were seen at the SIUE Arboretum on 11/18 (JM). On 11/20 at Tyson, 12 Orange Sulphurs and 1 Question Mark were observed (Jim Z.). At Busch Wildlife on 11/23 (temp. 58 degrees), 8 Orange Sulphurs and 1 Buckeye were seen (JZ, YH). That same weekend, Ann Earley and Bob Siemer saw an Eastern Comma in Warren County. By 11/25, the temperature had plunged into the 30s, and Torrey Berger saw one unidentified butterfly (Pearl Crescent-size) flying at Horseshoe Lake. The last butterfly reported for November, an Orange Sulphur, was seen by Bob Siemer and Jack Harris on 11/29 at Onondaga Cave S.P. on the WGNSS Botany Walk. The temperature was in the 50s. CONTRIBUTORS: Torrey Berger, Ann Earley, Ron Goetz, Jack Harris, Yvonne Homeyer, Jeannie Moe, Bob Siemer, Jim Ziebol. An asterisk * denotes photographic or video documentation of an unusual or hard-to-find species. Please submit reports at least 3 days before the end of the month to Yvonne: homeyer@earthlink.net or Jim. *********************************************************** SEEDS AVAILABLE: It's not too early to starting planning your garden! Dave Berry has generously offered to share seeds from his garden with other NABA members. If you are interested in a dozen or so seeds of Common Milkweed, Butterfly Weed, Wild Senna, or Columbine, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Dave Berry, 1818 Fairwood Forest Drive, St. Peters, MO 63376. ANNUAL MEETING & ELECTION OF OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS: We will hold our annual meeting of members, when we elect our officers and directors for the coming year, at the Visitors' Center of Busch Wildlife on Sunday, March 30 at 1:00 p.m. (See Calendar for directions). Following the brief meeting, Jim Ziebol will present a video of St. Louis area butterflies to get us ready for the burst of butterflies that will start appearing in April. The video will be shown on a large screen projector so we can enjoy these magnificent creatures up close. If the weather is nice, we will take a nature walk after the program to look for early butterflies, spring wildflowers and migrating songbirds. And of course we will stop by the Butterfly Garden to see what is coming up. Please mark March 30 on your calendar now. And look for the entire season's calendar of walks and counts in the March newsletter. We will be visiting lots of interesting places covering a variety of habitats. (YH) DOCUMENTING WITH PHOTOGRAPHY: Borrowing from birding tradition, butterfliers are now documenting unusual sightings with photography and written descriptions, rather than dead specimens. Each state has someone who keeps records, usually broken down by county. When Jim Ziebol and I were in Michigan this summer, we used the guide Michigan Butterflies and Skippers by Mogens Nielsen, an entomologist at Michigan State University, to figure out where we could expect to see certain butterflies. For each species there was a map of all the counties in Michigan where that butterfly had been seen. Referring to our day lists, we noticed that we had seen several butterflies in new counties. When we got back, Jim took the film we had shot with our Sony digital camcorders, made a video of all the species that seemed to be county records, and sent the video along with a written report to Mo Nielsen. He accepted five of our documentations as county records: Black Swallowtail, Silvery Checkerspot, Inornate Ringlet (two counties) and Two-spotted Skipper, a rare butterfly whose wetlands habitat is rapidly disappearing. We were pleased that our records were accepted based on photographic verification, which is rapidly becoming the standard for documenting new or unusual sightings. (Yvonne Homeyer). CONSERVATION FORUM WELL-ATTENDED: Many people stopped by NABA's display table at Conservation Forum, sponsored by UMSL's International Center for Tropical Ecology, on Nov. 14. The Zoo provided a TV & VCR for us so we were able to play a butterfly video, which got a lot of attention. We also got 2 petition sheets filled for our campaign to get St. Louis County to switch to Integrated Pest Management for mosquito control rather than relying on pesticide spraying. We handed out chapter brochures and talked to people about our butterfly walks and other activities. Many other nature-oriented organizations were there, such as the Butterfly House, Webster Groves Nature Study Society, St. Louis Audubon, Sierra Club, Wild Bird Rehab, Dept. of Conservation, Department of Natural Resources, Mo. Botanical Gardens, Pioneer Forest, and Rainforest Advocates, so we got a lot of exposure to these groups as well. (YH & JZ). MONARCH LARVA MONITORING PROJECT: The Monarch Larva Monitoring Project is a nationwide citizen science effort focusing on monitoring the status of Monarch larvae on milkweed. Locally, the Missouri Botanical Garden is the project sponsor. There will be a "Train the Trainer" program on May 2-3 at Shaw Nature Reserve; the volunteers will receive training at a later date. This project is well-suited for groups that have a nature center or outdoor classroom to monitor, although individuals can monitor any site they choose. For more information, contact Bob Coulter at the Missouri Botanical Garden (314-577-0219). The MLMP web site is www.mlmp.org. (YH) MIAMI BLUE GETS ENDANGERED STATUS IN FLORIDA by Yvonne Homeyer: MIAMI BLUE GETS ENDANGERED STATUS IN FLORIDA by Yvonne Homeyer The Miami Blue is on the brink of extinction. Once a common butterfly throughout southern Florida and the Keys, its population declined precipitously in the 1980s. After the devastation of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, no more Miami Blues were found, despite diligent searching, until a NABA member discovered a single colony seven years later in Bahia Honda State Park on Bahia Honda Key. Jeffrey Glassberg, NABA's president, confirmed the identification of the butterflies as Miami Blues and NABA began a campaign to get the Miami Blue listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. In spite of the fact that only a single colony is known to exist, the Fish and Wildlife Service has not acted on NABA's petition, but the State of Florida has gone ahead and listed the Miami Blue as Endangered under an emergency listing process. This fragile population of Miami Blues could be easily wiped out by any number of disasters, some natural and some man-made: storms, habitat change, spraying of chemicals to kill mosquitoes, disease, and killing by butterfly collectors. Before the endangered listing by the State of Florida, NABA designed and implemented the Miami Blue Fund (our chapter contributed $100 to the effort) to save this butterfly. Now the State of Florida will also provide protection. In addition, a captive breeding program is underway, with the idea of reintroducing Miami Blues into other parts of its former habitat. The eco-tourism economic value of the Miami Blue is estimated to be 20 million dollars. HORSESHOE LAKE COUNT:by Yvonne Homeyer & Jim Ziebol A sunny day on 8/24 produced an incredible 41 species & 1,621 individuals! Jim Ziebol, Torrey Berger, Kraig Paradise, Jeannie Moe, Ron Goetz, Scott Marshall, Linda Virga, Belle Warden, Dianne Benjamin, and Nancy & Dale Delaney participated in the Count; they divided into 3 groups and covered a lot of territory. Three Horseshoe Lake specialties - Southern Dogface, Duke's Skipper, and Bronze Copper - were all found. Bronze Copper formerly had a much larger range but it has been reduced to just a few locations due to development/destruction of its wetlands habitat. Horseshoe Lake is the only local area where Dogface is regularly found; its host plant, Amorpha fruticosa (False Indigo), occurs there. Orange & Cloudless Sulphurs, Dogface, E. Tailed-Blues, Pearl Crescents, Buckeyes, and Tawny Emperors were all reported in very large numbers. A Gray Comma, which is locally rare, was found; this had never been seen before at HL. Here are the Count results: Black Swallowtail 4 Am. Lady 1 *********************************************************** NEW MEMBERS The following person became a member of the St. Louis Chapter of NABA since November 1: Kathleen O'Keefe. Welcome to NABA! VISIT OUR WEB SITE at www.naba.org/chapters/nabasl/stlouis.htm. Dave Larson is our Webmaster. YOUR OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS: If you have questions or suggestions, e-mail Yvonne Homeyer NEWSLETTER ITEMS WELCOME MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION If you or someone you know would like to become a member of the St. Louis Chapter of NABA, please fill out this application: Name _____________________________________________ *********************************************************** *********************************************************** |
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