Hackberry Emperor

The hackberry emperor is a member of the brushfoot family that has a range which stretches into the southern half of Minnesota. The hackberry emperor caterpillar only eats the leaves of the hackberry tree, or possibly elm leaves, so they are only found in areas where these trees grow.
There are typically two broods of hackberry emperor per year. The first brood hatches should be hatching soon, usually the end of June and beginning of July. The second brood usually hatches near the end of August. The second brood will over winter in the larval form. You don't usually see these butterflies on flowers because they do not drink nectar, instead they are attracted to tree sap, bad fruit, and animal waste.

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.

Old Cedar Butterflies

The flycatchers, swallows, and warblers at Old Cedar have quite a smorgasbord of insects to choose from. Besides the mosquitoes, Minnesota might be the land of 10,000 lakes but we are also home to about 10 billion mosquitoes, flies, which have been so bad this year that I have actually seen deer flies down in the cities, dragons, damsels, spiders, and other insects there have are also a few butterflies. This year it seems that there are not as many butterflies as last year but usually I see a couple while I am out in the wilds.
In June at Old cedar I found a couple of butterflies to photograph. The first one, above, I believe is a European skipper. Skippers are tough to ID for new butterfly enthusiasts like myself, but using my autographed Kaufman Field Guide to Butterflies of North America I have concluded that this is the European skipper. If any of the experienced butterfly enthusiasts believe that I need to have my eyes examined let me know.
Incidentally I do need to go in for an eye exam, part of being a diabetic is annual eye exams, besides since my near vision has gone to hell since I got my current glasses. Which makes it difficult to see the camera LCD when you are taking pictures of butterflies like this hackberry emperor.
The hackberry emperor is a brush-footed butterfly that can be found through out most of the eastern half of the US as well as the south west and Mexico. They are fast, erratic fliers that are typically drawn to sap, rotting fruit, carrion, and dung. They often rest perched upside down on the trunks of trees. They get their name from the one of the larval host plants which is hackberry, the other host plant is sugarberry.