8th Annual Boyce Thompson Arboretum Butterfly Count report by Ron Rutowski
Saturday, September 6, 2014
The Central Arizona Butterfly Association ran the 8th annual butterfly count at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum on 6 September 2014. This count is part of a national system of butterfly counts managed by the North American Butterfly Association. There are over 400 registered count sites that are visited each year in the US, Canada, and Mexico. The BTA count was first done in 2007 and has run every year since. Each year counters visit several areas within a 15 mile diameter circle centered on Superior High School. Sites visited include the Picketpost Trailhead, the grounds of BTA, the Oak Flats area, the town of Superior, and the Apache Tears riparian area.
This year 14 count participants tallied over 631 individuals of 35 species. The sites with the highest number of species seen were BTA (24) and the Oak Flat area (25). The species with high numbers of individuals seen were Cloudless Sulphur (250!), Pipevine Swallowtail (79), Sleepy Orange (58), Queen (40), Empress Leilia (39), and American Snout (37). This year’s count was not exceptional. To give some perspective the highest count numbers seen in any previous year were in 2010 when 55 species were sighted and over 1000 individual butterflies. - Ron Rutowski
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