Massachusetts Butterfly Club

The Massachusetts Butterfly Club sponsors state-wide butterfly activities to promote education, conservation, interpretation, and fun! We invite people of all ages and levels of expertise to attend our meetings, programs, field trips, and butterfly counts and to become members of our club.

***   2019 Fall Member Meeting    ***   Save the date!   ***
                  Saturday, October 12th at 5:30 PM

The Fall member meeting of the Massachusetts Butterfly Club will be held at Massachusetts Audubon’s Broad Meadow Brook Sanctuary, 414 Massasoit Road, Worcester.

Our fantastic potluck supper will start at 5:30pm followed by two presentations.

Robert Gegear, PhD from UMass Dartmouth, will discuss his ongoing research entitled “The Bee Ecology Project” which utilizes citizen science to determine the interactions of insects (primarily bees) with the flora they use for nectar and other purposes. The goal is to understand what flora is best suited for pollinator gardens both for bees and other insects (such as butterflies). The Project is designed to utilize observations by interested knowledgeable citizens in the field who would report them to the Project via the internet. He will explain how Club members could join in this important research. You can find out more about this project at beecology.wpi.edu.
His web site is at www.umassd.edu/directory/rgegear.

John Himmelman of Connecticut will then give a full length presentation entitled “Discovering Moths: Nightime Jewels in Your Own Backyard”. John is a knowledgeable and entertaining speaker on nature topics. He is an author of numerous books aimed at educating children about nature. He served as President of the New Haven Bird Club and was a co-founder in 1994 of the Connecticut Butterfly Association.
His web site is at www.johnhimmelman.com

If you have friends who might be interested in either of these topics, feel free to invite them to our meeting which is open to the public.

      *****  Butterflying Code of Ethics  *****
The Massachusetts Butterfly Club has adopted a Butterflying Code of Ethics. You can find the document under Club Information on the left menu.

      *****  2019 Hessel's Hairstreak Search Project  *****
Butterfly seekers are needed for the 2019 Hessel's Hairstreak Search Project, a joint venture between The Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program (NHESP) of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife and the Massachusetts Butterfly Club (MBC). This is a volunteer project and you can commit as much time as you can to it. Even a ½ hour hike at a site would be really helpful. The time frame is from mid-May to the end of June.

Please email Danielle Desmarais at Dldesmar@hotmail.com to be added to the email list for all the communication and documents that explain the search in detail.

                      * * * * Club Merchandise * * * *
We still have a few official Massachusetts Butterfly Club HATS and T-SHIRTS available for purchase. They are on sale for $20 each.

             ****** Massachusetts State Butterfy ******
For the latest news and status, please check out the Massachusetts State Butterfly Facebook page

Sign up to get e-mail from Massachusetts butterfly enthusiasts!

If you wish to receive periodic e-mail messages about butterflies in Massachusetts and to report your own butterfly sightings, consider joining the MassLep list server. Butterfly watchers from around the state send messages listing the butterflies they see, describing butterfly behavior, posing questions, and answering them. Joining the list server is a great way to find out what's flying and to get to know others who share your interests!

If you have problems with subscribing or unsubscribing to the MassLep list server, send an email to the list server monitor.

    *****  Report your sightings to our Records Compiler   *****

If you do not report your sightings on MassLep or Facebook and would like to report your sightings to our records compiler directly, you can download the spreadsheet below and email to Mark Fairbrother at mark@massbutterflies.org.

            Sightings Report spreadsheet

Note: Please DO NOT use this form if you report your sightings on MassLep or Facebook.

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