By Jonathan Nikkila Putting to use all the tips, tricks and ID help Neil Dankert has given me over the years, I spent a day during our family vacation to the Pine Ridge last week to hunt for Western Nebraska butterfly species. My family was staying at Ft. Robinson State Park, a great place forContinue reading “Western Nebraska: Good for family & butterflies”
Tag Archives: Black Swallowtail
Distribution Map Updates – Part 2
Here are the remaining seven maps for butterflies with six or fewer counties needed to complete their “clean sweep” of all 93 counties. If you happen to be traveling through or have relatives in any of these counties there is an opportunity to get your/their name in the record book (see Garfield County post fromContinue reading “Distribution Map Updates – Part 2”
Let’s Tag Some Monarchs
Welcome to all the new viewers. Ideally the World Herald article would have been earlier in the year as it has generated a lot of traffic. As you can see I’m at 99 species for the year so a lot has happened already. June and July are when most of Nebraska’s butterflies that have aContinue reading “Let’s Tag Some Monarchs”
Platte River Bottom Lands – Alda to Wood River
Chris Helzer sent me a skipper picture Wednesday which he had correctly ided as Peck’s Skipper (Polites peckius). He’d taken the pic at a Nature Conservancy tract south of Alda and he commented that they were not uncommon there. As I had not yet sighted that skipper this year and it was only an hour’sContinue reading “Platte River Bottom Lands – Alda to Wood River”
Butterfly Gardening
If it’s not to late and you haven’t already purchased all your plants for the year you might consider some plants that attract and sustain our native butterflies and pollinators. There are several great resources for our state. The first is a NebGuide by Steve Spomer and Kim Todd titled “Butterfly Gardening.” It is availableContinue reading “Butterfly Gardening”
Return to Box Elder WMA
On May 3 I met Jon Nikkila at Box Elder SWMA in Lincoln county for a second look at this WMA. Our first visit was very early (April 11) and we looked almost exclusively for Giant Yucca Skipper tents (of which we found two) along with one Olympia Marblewing. This trip the main target speciesContinue reading “Return to Box Elder WMA”