Eastern Comma

The eastern comma is a pretty common butterfly that we see here in Minnesota, it is the most common of the six different types of comma's that can be found in this area. Comma's are members of the brushfoot family and get their name from the small white mark on the underside of the hind wing. These marks resemble a comma, punctuation mark, or a question mark. The shape of the comma is one of the field marks that help distinguish between the various forms of commas. The eastern comma has a hook on one end of the comma, as seen above, which the others do not have.

Eastern commas can be found through out much of the spring, summer and fall. They typically have two broods on our area, one at the beginning of July and another in September. The brood that hatches in September will over winter in its adult form, Usually hibernating in hollow trees. Because they over winter as adults they are often one of the first butterflies that we see each year. However they can be easy to miss because when perched with their wings folded, as in the first picture, they can blend in very well with dead leaves.

Butterflies at the Bass Ponds

There were a lot of very colorful dragonflies flying around the Bass Ponds over the summer, which was lucky for me because it seemed as though we had a lot less butterflies around this year. The lack of butterflies may have been a direct effect of the late start to spring that we had this year. Many butterfly species have more then one brood over the summer and it seems like the early broods, many of which are caterpillars that hatched the prior summer and over wintered in their larval form, may have been effected by the late winter weather and so less made it to their adult form.
The eastern comma, pictured above, is one of earliest butterflies that we see each year. This is because they hibernate as adults. They spend the winter in a state of suspended animation in a crevice or hollow tree with their wings folded together and head down. In this position they avoid predators, while they are helpless, by appearing to be a dead leaf.
The red-spotted purple is actually a subspecies of the red-spotted admiral. These butterflies over winter as a Caterpillar in a rolled leaf of one of their host plants, which include willow, aspen, hawthorn, birch, poplar, basswood, juneberry, black cherry and apple trees.
The red-spotted purple resembles the pipevine swallowtail, which is toxic. This mimicry helps the red-spotted purple to avoid predators in the south where their ranges overlap. Up here in the north they are not so lucky and you can see this one has a few pieces missing from its wings.
Skippers are always tough for me to ID, I am still pretty new at butterflies, but I think that this may be a Delaware skipper. If anyone thinks that I am wrong please let me know in the comment section.

Old Cedar Butterflies

Back on the trail, at the Old Cedar Bridge, I spotted a few butterflies near the small pond that frequently overflows over path.
I managed to get a couple of pics of this hackberry emperor.
Hackberry emperors are fairly common in the eastern and southern US as well as Mexico. They are frequently found around hackberry trees, which are the larval food plant, and often perch in the trees or on other objects that are high off of the ground. Like other types of emperor butterflies, hackberry emperor adults prefer to eat sap and rotting fruit over blooming flowers.
Male hackberry emperors are very territorial and the hackberry above made several attempts to drive away an eastern comma, shown above, that was in its territory. The eastern comma are the first butterfly that we typically see in the spring. These woodland butterflies hibernate, as adults, over the winter, usually using cracks in trees or buildings or hollow logs. With their wings folded they look like fall leaves which helps to camouflage them from predators.

Butterflies Before the Snow

Minnesota is known as the land of 10,000 lakes but what most people, who do not live in this area, do not know is that Minnesota is also the land of 10,000 weather changes. For instance last weekend started off cloudy, then it cleared up and by mid week the temps were getting close to 80 degrees, and then by Friday our temps were down in the 30s and 40s and we got snow over night. This not only screws up nature enthusiast, like myself, I imagine it does a pretty good job of screwing up the flora and fauna also. Like last Sunday when the sun finally came out I made a trip to Fort Snelling State Park to do a bit of birding. While I was birding I was excited to see another eastern comma butterfly.
This is the second eastern comma that I have photographed this year, however I have not seen many butterflies since I saw the first one a couple weeks before at the North Mississippi Regional Park. There were a couple of nice high 60s days back then and I spotted a couple of butterflies but then the weather changed and got a bit colder and the butterflies became scarce again.
When it warmed up again last weekend the butterflies came back out, I photographed this mourning cloak at Fort Snelling last Sunday also, but I am afraid that now that the weather has changed again, that I probably wont see butterflies again until it warms up.

Eastern Comma First Butterfly of 2008

Last Thursday while I was wondering around the North Mississippi Regional Park looking for the heron rookery I had a pleasant surprise. I started off down the path that runs along the river, like the directions on the MOU list server stated, but I was going the wrong way down the path. I headed north along the river from the interpretive center instead of south. It was not really a bad thing though because sometimes a mistake can turn into blessing in disguise. On this afternoon the sun was warm and it was the first really beautiful day of spring. As I walked I spotted some pied grebe on the river, first of the year, some hooded mergansers, a phoebe, first of the year, and an old brown leaf.
A Brown leaf? Wait a minute that is not a leaf that is actually a eastern comma butterfly and the first butterfly which I have seen in 2008. Don't you just love its camouflage.
Now some of you who live in a warmer climate are probably thinking, "So what" right about now. Well I live in Minnesota, just in case you have not been paying attention, and 3 days before I took these pics we had temps below freezing and blizzard like conditions as we got over 8" of snow. I did not expect to see any butterflies until the end of the month or more likely May but there it was right in front of me. Good thing that I went the wrong way.
The following day, last Friday, I saw my second butterfly of 2008, a mourning cloak, at Wood Lake Nature Center. I followed it for a while but it did not land. Instead it flew up and over the tree line so unfortunately no picture, but spring has just begun so I am sure that I will have more chances. Today the butterfly cage that I ordered came in. It is made of pvc and netting and is about the size of a 38 gallon aquarium. That should give me plenty of room to raise monarchs, black swallowtail and maybe even order some painted lady caterpillars too. My plan is to set up a web cam or two so that I can get pictures of all the different stages since last year they always seemed to hatch from their chrysalis while I had my back turned.

Birding and politics on a Saturday afternoon.

On July 11th I received an e-mail from the Minnesota Ornithologists Union about an upcoming rally at the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge on July 14th. The purpose of the rally was to show the state politicians, who were visiting the site, that they should help to fund a plan to replace the bridge. The bridge, which stretches across the Minnesota River, was replaced with a new bridge in 1979. It was closed to vehicular traffic in 1993 and to pedestrians and bicycles in 2002. As you can see by the picture below the bridge is in extremely poor shape.

So you may be wondering what an old bridge has to do with birding and the Minnesota Ornithologists Union, well this bridge extends through the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. This bridge was used by many birders to get a great view of the Minnesota river flood plains and mud flats before it became unsafe to use.
Now politicians in the cities of Bloomington, who currently owns the bridge, and Eagan, which is on the opposite side of the river, as well as several state politicians have put forth a plan to tare down the existing bridge and build a boardwalk platform on the existing cement supports. The problem is that the estimated cost is $4.5 million. A large part of that cost is for the removal of the existing bridge which contains lead so that it can not be knocked down conventionally. So far the supporters of the plan have secured $1.3 million in funding but still have a long way to go. That is why 200 or more people of all types (birders, bicyclists, hikers, and families) showed up on the 14th to show our support for this great cause. At the program, which began at noon, they had speakers ranging from local and state politicians, leaders of bicycle groups, neighbors, and leaders from MOU, Minnesota River Valley Audubon, and Minnesota Audubon.

I arrived at the park at 8:30am and spent my time waiting for the speakers program on the trails birding. The Old Cedar Avenue Bridge is a part of the Long Meadow unit of the Minnesota Valley NWR. There are a total of 8 units in MV NWR which follow the Minnesota River and stretch from Bloomington in the north to Jordan in the south. I walked all the trails north of the bridge. As I started from the bridge parking lot I saw an american redstart who had just caught itself some breakfast.

As I continued on I spotted several goldfinch near the bass ponds, which was once used to raise fish for stocking Minnesota lakes. This one was pulling the seeds out of the pods of the wildflowers when a bee ran smack into his head. Boy did he give that bee a dirty look.

Near the same pond I also saw this ruby-throated hummingbird.

I also saw several sparrow, some green heron, and some great blue heron. Then I went to the south of the bridge to check out the small boardwalk which goes out to the lake. There I saw a couple of great egret as well as tree and barn swallows.

I also took a couple of butterfly pics like this one of a common sulfur
and this eastern comma which looks like it had seen better days.
When I was walking back off the boardwalk I was startled by a white tail doe. She just sat and watched me as I walked past about 4 feet away.
This was the only deer that I saw which surprised me because on my trips to Fort Snelling State Park, which borders the park in the north, I have seen plenty of deer. It turned out to be a great morning and afternoon. I got out, did some birding and helped lend my support for a good cause.