Friday, June 18, 2010

St Paul Audubon's Annual Butterfly Census.

This weekend I will be participating in the St Paul Audubon Societies Annual Butterfly Census. Each summer members of the St Audubon chapter come together in this exercise in citizen science. The information that is collected is passed on to the North American Butterfly Association to help identify butterfly distribution and understand how issues such as habitat loss and climate change affect butterflies.
This will be the first time that I will be participating in the census. The census is taken at the Arden Hills Army Army Training Site so the number of participants is limited. The plan is two capture and identify butterflies in three different habitats, a native prairie, a restored Prairie and a bog. Once the butterflies have been identified and recorded they will be released. I will also bring one of my cameras so that I can hopefully get some butterfly pics. Though most of the 59 species that have been identified over the years are fairly common, such as the monarchs in the photos above, each year they find new species so perhaps I could get lucky and get some pics of a new butterfly.

7 comments:

Snap said...

How wonderful! Hope you get lots of wonderful shots at the butterfly count!

Katia said...

A butterfly census! Exciting! Good luck at catching photos of a rare species!

i beati said...

fantastic sandy

Tink *~*~* said...

I dunno, "butterfly census" just kind of cracks me up - I have a hard enough time photographing these little flitters, much less counting them! LOL

Tink *~*~*

Misty DawnS said...

That sounds like so much fun! Congrats to you for being picked to participate.

Joanne Olivieri said...

Oh these butterflies are just so perfect. Magnificent photos

ksdoolittle said...

Hope you had a good time and were able to capture some fab photos! ~karen