Butterfy Watching in Wisconsin
Butterfly Sightings and Records
Butterfly Watching in Wisconsin
Butterflies can be found in many places, including your own backyard, especially if you practice butterfly gardening (see next section). City and county parks, and state parks and forests, state wildlife areas, arboretums, state natural areas, The Prairie Enthusiasts' properties, Madison Audubon Society sanctuaries, and The Nature Conservancy properties are great places to start. Join SWBA on a field trip to explore new territories.
Tips for Watching Butterflies
• Close-focusing binoculars are very helpful for identifying butterflies and enjoying them more by bringing small details to life. Learn more about SWBA' s recommended binoculars for butterfly watching.
• Field guides. Probably the best overall guide for our area is Jeffrey Glassberg's Butterflies through Binoculars, The East (Oxford University Press). Also good is Butterflies of North America by Kenn Kaufman and Jim Brock (Houghton Mifflin). Be sure to save yourself some time by downloading two free indexes (Glassberg and Kaufman) that tell you the page numbers for Wisconsin species for each of these books. Just tape in your field guide(s).
• Digital Camera. If you can't identify a butterfly, or just want to capture its portrait, a digital camera can be a great addition to your butterfly watching toolkit.
• Getting closer. Try to move slowly and gracefully when you approach a butterfly so you don't startle it.
• Timing. Visit areas at different times of the season, as butterflies species emerge at different times. Just one week can make a big difference.
• Look for nectar flowers such as butterflyweed and bee balm as butterflies will congregate here. Shallow puddles or moist dirt on backroads and trails are great places to find puddling butterflies. Animal scat, rotting fruit, and tree sap are also popular sources of nutrients for butterflies.
• Weather/Attire. Butterflies are easiest to find on warm, calm sunny days. You need not get up at 5 a.m. to butterfly. But you will want to bring plenty of water, sun protection, and sturdy shoes.
• Sharing your findings/Help with ID. Wisconsin Butterflies is the website where butterfly watchers can share their sightings, post photos, get help with identification, find an online field guide, and find out what butterflies are being found in other parts of the state.
SWBA Butterfly Gardening fact sheet (pdf). Nectar and caterpillar food plants that do well in Wisconsin, and other guidelines on attracting butterflies to your yard.
NABA lists of host and nectar plants for west central Wisconsin (http://www.naba.org/ftp/wcwi.pdf) and southwestern Wisconsin (http://www.naba.org/ftp/swwi.pdf) (pdf files are free. Brochures can be ordered for fee.)
HOSTS-a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants includes a comprehensive record of the plants that caterpillars feed upon. You need to enter the scientific name, rather than the common name, of the butterfly or plant:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/projects/hostplants
http://www.monarchwatch.org/garden/index.htm
http://www.xerces.org/Pollinator_Insect_Conservation/butterflygarden.htm
Checklist of Wisconsin Butterflies: http://www.entomology.wisc.edu/wes/pubs/bflylist.html
Butterflies of Pheasant Branch Conservancy (Middleton, WI): http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/es/science/publications/checklists.htm
Butterfly Sightings and Records
Wisconsin Butterflies. Report your recent butterfly sightings here and find out what butterflies are being seen in the state. Packed with useful information. Also covers dragonflies, damselfies, and tiger beetles. See also under Online Field Guide. Created by member Mike Reese: http://www.wisconsinbutterflies.org
NABA's sighting page for North America: http://www.naba.org/sightings/sightings.html
Butterflies and Moths of North American. This web site includes species accounts, occurrence maps, checklists, and photographs of species in the U.S. and Mexico, by state and county: http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org
Wisconsin Butterflies. Includes range maps, important identifying marks, photos, and more. See also under Butterfly Sightings. Created by member Mike Reese: http://www.wisconsinbutterflies.org
The Wisconsin DNR's Field Guide to rare lepidoptera in Wisconsin bogs and barrens: http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/ORG/LAND/er/invertebrates/butterflies_moths/intro.htm
http://www.naba.org/counts.html
Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network, a citizen scientists program monitoring the health of butterfly populations in northeastern and central Illinois: http://www.bfly.org
Our inhouse binocular expert Karl Legler highly recommends Pentax Papilio's, which are reasonably priced close-focusing binoculars. Sold by Eagle Optics (online store and a showroom in Middleton).
http://www.naba.org/binocs.html
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/gear/binoculars
Monarch Watch, from the University of Kansas: http://www.monarchwatch.org
Butterfly watching tips from the Wisconsin DNR: http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/ORG/LAND/er/invertebrates/butterflies_moths/watching.htm
Children's Butterfly Site: http://bsi.montana.edu/web/kidsbutterfly
Beaver Creek Reserve (Fall Creek, WI), native butterflies in screened butterfly house, open seasonally: http://www.beavercreekreserve.org
Mosquito Hill Nature Center (New London, WI), native butterflies, open seasonally: http://www.co.outagamie.wi.us/Parks/MH_home.htm
Olbrich Botanical Garden (Madison, WI) sponsors a live butterfly exhibit in the Bolz Conservatory each summer: http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/olbrich
Milwaukee Public Museum Peulicher Butterfly Wing, permanent exhibit of live butterflies: http://www.mpm.edu/exhibitions/permanent/puelicher.php
The Butterfly Conservation Initiative list of Butterfly Exhibits and Gardens in the U.S.: http://www.butterflyrecovery.org/all_about_butterflies
North American Butterfly Association: http://www.naba.org
The Butterfly Conservation Initiative: http://www.butterflyrecovery.org
The Lepidopterists' Society. Includes full-text articles from the society's journal: http://www.lepsoc.org
Xerces Society: http://www.xerces.org
