Volume 10 - Issue 1, February 15, 2008 - Lake Chapala Review

Page 64 Lake Chapala Review
February 2008
Gems in the Garden
by Yale Weatherby www.mexicanadventure.smugmug.com
33rd Annual North American Butterfly Count -2007
3rd Annual Jalisco Butterfly Count – 2007
We were privileged to have Ms. Kim Garwood of Mission,
Tx with us for our Annual Butterfly Count in Lake Chapala.
Kim is the co-author of the premier book “Butterflies –
Northeastern Mexico”. This book is a bible for those wanting
to identify the butterflies found in Mexico. She also is coauthor
of the book titled “Butterflies of Southern Amazonia”,
which is defined as the State of Madre de Dios in southeaster
Peru, the State of Rondonia is west-central Brazil, and the
State of Mato Grosso is
south-central Brazil. As
we learned that Kim is
also a avid “Birder”, as she
says: Birds and Butterflies
seem to go together. This
year, we took advantage
of Kim’s visit to turn this
count into both a annual count and educational count for
us that had never participated in a organized annual count
stateside. The participants were Yale Weatherby, Philomena
Weatherby, Gale Streun and Kim Garwood. Our Count Circle
defined as: Center being the Catholic Church in Riberas del
Pilar, East boundary being Vista del Lago, West boundary
being the Racquet Club in San Juan Cosala. We started
the count at 1030 hrs on 24 September and completed
the count at 1630 hrs. Areas visited were: Lake Chapala
Society Grounds, lakeside near Rio Bravo, the cactus garden
& Mexican Plum Tree on Rio Naza, Chapala Hacienda, and
Vista de Lago.
Results of the 3rd Annual Jalisco Butterfly Count –
2007
Swallowtails 7 species
Montezuma Polydamas Giant Broad-banded
Two-tailed Magnificent Pink-spotted
Whites 4 species
Mexican Dartwhite Florida Great Southern
Mountain
Sulphurs 8 species
Southern Dogface Cloudless Orange-barred
Large Orange Barred Yellow Mexican Yellow
Tailed Orange Mimosa Yellow
Blues 1 species
Cassius Blue
Brushfoots 11 species
Gulf Fritillary Mexican Silverspot Texan Crescent
Zebra Longwing Mexican Fritillary Banded Peacock
Blomfield/s Beauty White Peacock Juno
Black-patch Cracker Bordered Patch
Satyrs 1 species
Carolina Satyr
Milkweed Butterflies 1 species
Monarch
Spreadwing Skippers 11 species
Elbella Scylla White-stripped Longtail Zilpa Longtail
Dorantes Longtail Brown Longtail Staphylus Sp.
Pallid Sicklewing Sickle-wing sk. Guava Skipper
White-patched Skipper Tropical Checkered-Skipper
Grass-Skippers 1 species
Quinta cannae
Interesting to Note: On Saturday, we visited the Mexican
Plum Tree/Cactus Garden and were overwhelmed with the
multitude of “Blomfild’s Beauty’s”. The fruit of the plum tree
was just ripe enough to attract those butterflies who feed on
rotting fruit. There were approximately 50 – 60 Blomfild’s
Beauty feeding in this single tree, Kim stated that she had
never seen that many Blomfild’s Beauty at any one time. At
the same time, we saw two (2) Gray Crackers in the vicinity
of the Plum Tree. On Sunday, we drove up to Mazamitla to
observe butterflies at this higher elevation (7,300 ft); we
were surprised to find a large mowed lot in a gated area that
had 12 – 18 “Pipevine Swallowtail” obviously searching for
host plants on which to lay their eggs. They didn’t seem to
mind the intrusion into their area, but continued to search
for the plants. We put Kim on the Bus for McAllen Texas, she
left one day to early, as on the 26th September, we had about
12 – 18 Juno butterflies cruising around our yard, looking to
lay eggs on our “Passion Vines”, while 200 – 300 caterpillars
are gorging their way through the passion-vines.. What a
sight!!! Juno butterflies lay a cluster of about 100 eggs at a
time at a single site, while many other butterflies lay single
egg on 100 sites.