Next meeting to be announced this fall.

Past Meetings:

Annual Meeting: Butterflies of Southern Wisconsin & Member Photo Show and Tell

Speaker: Mike Reese

Tuesday, April 27, 7 p.m.

Warner Park Community Recreation Center in Madison

At the April meeting, educator and photographer Mike Reese will give a presentation on the Butterflies of Southern Wisconsin, including how to recognize them and where to find them. He will also discuss his new butterfly guide application for iPod Touch and iPhone. 

Photo Show and Tell
Share some of your favorite butterfly, moth or caterpillar photos at the April meeting and enjoy the photos of others. You are welcome to briefly comment about your photos. Please email up to 8 photos (as TIFF or JPG files) to Mike Reese at mikereese@wisconsinbutterflies.org   Please keep image size to less than 3 megabytes at 1024 x 768 pixels (but if you prefer, we can crop and resize the file for you).  Or bring digital photos to the meeting either on a CD or USB flash drive. Prints are okay, but if you want to show slides, please let us know ahead of time by contacting Karl Legler at (608) 643-4926 or karlndot@charter.net

Election of Officers
If you are interested in serving as an officer of SWBA for the next year, or would like to nominate someone else, contact the Nominating Committee Chair Tod Highsmith at (608) 242-1168 or todhighsmith@sbc.global.net

Everyone is welcome to attend this free program. We will have door prizes, displays, books, handouts, and plenty of time afterward to enjoy refreshments and talk with our speaker Mike Reese and butterfly, photography, and butterfly gardening enthusiasts.

DIRECTIONS:  On Madison’s north side, from the intersection of Sherman Avenue and Northport Drive (Hwy 113) go west on Northport Drive for about 1/4 mile, then turn south into Warner Park. Turn immediately right into the Community Center parking lot.  When you enter the Community Recreation Center, we will be in the meeting room on the left.

Tuesday, Feb. 23, 7 p.m.
Moths!
Speaker: Mark Evans

Warner Park Community Recreation Center (Madison)

Learn all about these beautiful, mysterious and incredibly diverse creatures with fascinating lives. Mark will share photographs of many beautiful moths. He wil also conduct an evening moth field trip in July.

Everyone is welcome to attend this free program. We will have door prizes, displays, books, handouts and plenty of time to enjoy refreshments and talk with our speaker Mark Evans, and other lepidoptera enthusiasts.

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 7 p.m.

Adventures in Muskegs and Kettleholes: Bog Butterflies of Northern Wisconsin
Speaker: Ann Swengel
Warner Park Community Recreation Center (Madison)

Bogs, one of the most pristine habitats left in North America, host a
variety of fascinating yet little noticed butterfly species. These include Red-disked Alpine, Freija Fritillary, and several other beguiling butterflies found nowhere else in the state. Lepidopterist Ann Swengel will discuss the challenges of finding these rare beauties and understanding how these species have a lot to teach us about how to conserve the butterflies nearer home, where their habitats occur in more civilized and fragmented landscapes.

An enthusiast of butterflies since childhood, Ann became
serious about them in the mid-1980s, with the encouragement of ornithologist Scott Swengel, who subsequently became her husband. Field partners in bird and butterfly surveys ever since, the Swengels have studied prairie butterflies in seven states, as well as Wisconsin's barrens and bog butterflies. They have published many peer-reviewed scientific papers on butterfly detection, habitat associations, phenology and fluctuations, and responses to site management, as well as non-technical articles. A past vice president of the North American Butterfly Association (NABA) and co-editor of NABA's annual 4th of July Butterfly Count report, Ann currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Insect Conservation.

DIRECTIONS:  On Madison’s north side, from the intersection of Sherman Avenue and Northport Drive (Hwy 113) go west on Northport Drive for about 1/4 mile, then turn south into Warner Park. Turn immediately right into the Community Center parking lot.  When you enter the Community Recreation Center, we will be in the meeting room on the left.

Annual Meeting: Native Bee Conservation and Photo Show and Tell

Tuesday, April 28, 7 p.m.-9 p.m., Warner Park Community Recreation Center in Madison

Speaker:  Eric Mader on “Native Bee Conservation”

Pollinators are important to our environment, providing essential services for native wildflowers and the production of more than two-thirds of the world’s crop species, including products we grow in our backyard gardens. But pollinators are in trouble. Diseases, parasitic mites and Colony Collapse Disorder have created a honey bee crisis. Increasingly farmers, scientists, and conservation professionals are turning their attention to the value of roughly 4,000 native species of bees to fill this void. In this talk, Eric Mader will provide an overview of native bee biology, the value of insect pollination in Wisconsin, basic identification of our local native bees, and an overview of pollinator conservation efforts taking place locally by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, the DNR, and the USDA.

Eric Mader is the Xerces Society’s national pollinator outreach coordinator. He is an adjunct assistant extension professor at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Entomology, and has authored several books and government management plans for native pollinators. More information about the Xerces Society is available at: www.xerces.org.

Photo Show and Tell: Share some of your favorite butterfly or caterpillar photos at the April meeting and enjoy the photos of others. You are welcome to briefly comment about your photos.   Please email up to 8 photos (as TIFF or JPG files) to Mike Reese at mikereese@wisconsinbutterflies.org .   Please send files under 3 megabytes and in a format of 1024 x 768 pixels (but if not we may resize the file for you).  Or bring digital photos to the meeting either on a CD or USB flash drive.  Prints are okay too, but if you want to show slides let us know ahead of time by contacting Karl Legler at (608) 643-4926 or karlndot@charter.net.

Election of Officers: If you are interested in serving as an officer of SWBA for the next year, contact the Nominating Committee Chair Tod Highsmith at (608) 242-1168 or at todhighsmith@sbc.global.net.

Everyone is welcome to attend this free program.  We will have door prizes, displays, books, handouts and plenty of time afterward to enjoy refreshments and talk with our speaker Eric Mader and butterfly, photography, and butterfly gardening enthusiasts.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 7 p.m., Warner Park Community Recreation Center in Madison

Conservation of the Swamp Metalmark Butterfly

Susan Borkin

The Swamp Metalmark butterfly is listed as an endangered species in Wisconsin. Susan Borkin of the Milwaukee Public Museum will present an overview of her research on the natural history of this tiny, beautiful and rare butterfly here in Wisconsin and preliminary efforts to reintroduce it. She will also discuss various elements that are important for the conservation of this species throughout its range. Everyone is welcome to attend this free program.

The meeting will last from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and include door prizes. We will have plenty of time afterward to enjoy refreshments and talk with other butterfly enthusiasts.

DIRECTIONS:  On Madison’s north side, from the intersection of Sherman Avenue and Northport Drive (Hwy 113) go west on Northport Drive for about 1/4 mile, then turn south into Warner Park. Turn immediately right into the Warner Park Community Recreation Center parking lot. When you enter the Community Recreation Center we will be in the meeting room on the left. To see a map, visit http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/parks/warnerpark/index.html

Tuesday, April 8, 7 p.m., Middleton Public Library, Annual Meeting

Photo Show and Tell. Share some of your favorite butterfly or caterpillar photos. Details below. Online Butterfly Identification.
Mike Reese, one of Wisconsin’s top
butterfly experts, will present an update on the
status of his exciting project to create an
interactive online butterfly identification class.
Everyone attending the meeting will receive a 2007 Seasonal Summary of Wisconsin Butterflies, an invaluable guide for deciding where and when to go butterflying.
Photo Show and Tell Details. You are welcome to briefly
talk about your photos. Please feel free to bring
butterfly photos you wish help with identifying. Please email up to 10 photos (TIFF or JPG, 1024 x 768
pixels or they will be resized for you) to Mike Reese
at mikereese@wisconsinbutterflies.org by April 1. Or
bring digital photos to the meeting either on a CD or
USB flash drive. Slides or prints are welcome as well.
We will have a brief business meeting, and will
elect officers.

Where is the Middleton Library? See map to library:
http://www.midlibrary.org/library/contactus.asp#r
Parking is available in the library parking lot, and
on the street. From the library lobby take stairs or
elevator down to the community meeting room.

MEETING CANCELED DUE TO WEATHER. PLAN TO RESCHEDLE FOR LATER THIS YEAR.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008, 7 p.m., Middleton Public Library

Conservation of the Swamp Metalmark Butterfly

by Susan Borkin

The Swamp Metalmark butterfly is listed as an endangered species in Wisconsin. Susan will present an overview of her research on the natural history of this tiny and rare butterfly here in Wisconsin and preliminary efforts to reintroduce it. She will also discuss various elements that are important for the conservation of this species throughout its range.

Susan Borkin has worked at the Milwaukee Public Museum since 1975, and is responsible for the curation of the museum's insect collections and operation of the Puelicher Butterfly Wing and Bugs Alive! exhibits that feature live butterflies and arthropods from around the world. Her current research focuses on conservation of two of Wisconsin's endangered butterflies, the Swamp Metalmark and Poweshiek Skipperling. She also enjoys butterfly gardening in her spare time.

Directions to the library can be found at: http://www.midlibrary.org/library/contactus.asp#r

ANNUAL MEETING, Sat. April 28, 10 a.m. Alicia Ashman Library, 733 N. High Point Road, Madison (see map)

Our first annual meeting will feature Dorothy Legler,
an avid butterfly watcher and gardener, who will share
tips on Butterfly Gardening. Butterflies are a
splendid addition to any garden. Dorothy will show
slides of Wisconsin butterflies and the plants they
utilize. She will also discuss nectar and host plants,
butterfly behavior, and provide ideas for attracting
butterflies to your yard.

FEBRUARY

Saturday, February 17, 2007, 10 a.m., Alicia Ashman Library, 733 N. High Point Road, Madison (see map)

The Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network: A Model for Citizen Science
Speaker: Doug Taron, PhD, curator of biology at the Chicago Academy of Sciences

Doug will discuss the history of the monitoring network, how it operates, the rationale for forming the network and for choosing butterflies as a study group, as well as some results.

Doug, who earned his PhD from Northwestern University, is also director of the Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network (IBMN). IBMN monitors the health of butterfly populations throughout northeastern and central Illinois. As curator for CAS, Doug is responsible for all living organisms inside and on the grounds of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. He directs an in-house butterfly breeding program to rear representative Illinois butterflies and researches the conservation biology of prairie butterflies in Illinois.

The Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network has scheduled a butterfly monitoring workshop for the following Sat., Feb. 24, in Elgin, IL. SWBA members are welcome to attend. For more information, see http://www.bfly.org

OCTOBER

Tuesday, Oct. 24, 7 p.m., Middleton Public Library.

"Butterfly Monitoring and Conservation Successes in Wisconsin" by Ann Swengel

Ann and her husband Scott have conducted monitoring surveys of butterflies at the same prairie and barren sites from the early 1990s to present. Ann will share some good news on conservation developments in Wisconsin for rare butterflies, and show lots of colorful slides of regional butterflies from all habitats, including bogs.

Ann and her husband Scott's research on monitoring and conservation of prairie and barrens butterflies, owls, and grassland birds has been published in numerous scientific articles. She was vice president of NABA from 1992-2003 and international editor or co-editor of the NABA Butterfly Counts from 1991-early 2005. Ann is currently coordinator of NABA's Program for Butterfly Gardens and Habitats and is a regular columnist in NABA's magazine, American Butterflies.

Directions to the library can be found at: http://www.midlibrary.org/library/contactus.asp#r