Hi All,I spent about 3 hours today (8/13) at Eagle Lake Wildlife Refuge hoping to see Bronze Coppers again. This is the same time frame that Richard Connors saw them there last year, so I was hopeful. As I was walking along the berm around the lake, at almost the same spot as the Bronze Coppers were seen last year, a Blue fluttered up and settled back down on a blade of grass. I first thought it was an Eastern Tailed-Blue, but when I looked for tails, I didn't see any. That's when I noticed the large black dots ringed with white on the forewings - a Reakirt's Blue!!! To my knowledge this is only the second sighting of this species in Tennessee, the other also from Shelby County, when, I don't know. Amazingly, I saw 4 fresh individuals today, some hundreds of feet away from each other. I only saw 1 Eastern Tailed-Blue, who would have thought Reakirt's Blues would outnumber them. We had a big rain last night, so the gravel road through the refuge was covered with hundreds of Hackberry Emperors, American Snouts, Pearl Crescents, Cloudless Sulphurs, and Question Marks. Also seen along the road were dozens of Little Yellows, Fiery Skippers, Silvery Checkerspots, and Spicebush Swallowtails. Unfortunately, no Bronze Coppers, Funereal Duskywings, or Dainty Sulphurs this time. Maybe next trip. Here's a list of species seen and approximate numbers: Eastern Tiger Swallowtail - 12Zebra Swallowtail - 1Pipevine Swallowtail - 1Spicebush Swallowtail - 25+Checkered White - 1Orange Sulphur - 20+Sleepy Orange - 15Little Yellow - 30+Cloudless Sulphur - 100+Gray Hairstreak - 3Red-banded Hairstreak - 1Eastern Tailed-Blue - 1Reakirt's Blue - 4Gulf Fritillary - 5Variegated Fritillary - 1Pearl Crescent - 100+Phaon Crescent - 1Silvery Checkerspot - 20+Question Mark - 50+Eastern Comma - 3Red Admiral - 4Common Buckeye - 50+Red-spotted Purple - 10Viceroy - 8Hackberry Emperor - 100+American Snout - 100+Monarch - 4Silver-spotted Skipper - 20+Horace's Duskywing - 2Common/White Checkered-Skipper - 5Hayhurst's Scallopwing - 1Fiery Skipper - 100+Sachem - 20+Northern Broken-Dash - 2 34 species. Bart JonesMemphis, Shelby County
Attachment:
Reakirt's Blue3.jpg
Description: JPEG image
Attachment:
Reakirt's Blue7.jpg
Description: JPEG image
