Morning Bart,
This is Craig Marks from down in Louisiana. Looks like you have been having
the same trouble I have been experiencing with this unseasonably cold spring
weather on virtually every weekend. Yesterday, with temps in the 50s after a
hard day of rain on Sat I only saw 8 species, about 30 individual b/fs.
Anyway, the reason I am bothering you is that I will be in the Memphis area
the first weekend in May for a soccer tournament that my daughter's team is to
play in. I may have some time to sneak away and do some butterflying so I
thought I'd ask about what might be flying. Some of my "wish" b/fs would be
Cobweb Skippers, Reverse Roadside Slippers, Linda's Roadside Skippers,
Gold-banded Skippers, Hobomok Skippers, Edwards Hairstreaks and/or Hickory HS.
Do you have knowledge or records of any of those found in the Memphis area? If
so, do the fly in early May? What about Yucca Giant-skippers? Is early May too
late?
If none of the listed b/fs can be found in Memphis, can you suggest any
place to visit? The tournament is on the east side of town toward Nashville at
the huge soccer complex that was built maybe 20 years ago. Thanks for any
suggesting you can make.
Craig
-----Original Message-----
From: Bart Jones <bjones7777@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thu, Apr 12, 2018 10:21 pm
Subject: [TN-Butterflies] Meeman-Shelby Count
Hi guys,
Here is the deal for this weekend. As you are probably aware, the forecast is
calling for thunderstorms overnight Friday into Saturday morning. The majority
of the rain is supposed to be over by lunchtime. If this is the case we will
attempt the count. So we will meet at the visitors center at 9:30. If it is
raining, we will go to the General Store for coffee and conversation. If it
stops raining before lunch, then we will hit the field, if not, we will go to
the Cornerstore Grill for lunch. If it is still raining after lunch, then we
will call it and attempt to count on Friday, April 20. We will try our best to
get this count in on Saturday however. So, be prepared to get wet, even if it
stops raining the grass will be wet for a while. With all the rain,
butterflies numbers are down even on nice days like today, so I'm not expecting
to have a blockbluster count. But we need to keep this around the same dates
to keep the data we've collected over the past 6 years valid. Remember we need
to have 4 counters, so please come if you had planned on it. We will still
have a great day no matter the weather.
Yours,
Bart Jones
Memphis, Shelby Co.
