Linda Evans will present a program on "Butterflies: How they Function; What they Need; and Why they are Important". Linda regularly gives butterfly tours at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and is an avid butterfly watcher, well known for her command of butterfly - plant relationships. Although you will also learn how to plant your garden to help and attract butterflies, this will be an opportunity to really learn how butterflies interact with plants and why we should care.
The Gifford Arboretum is located on the Northwest corner of the University of Miami's Coral Gables campus near Robbia Avenue and San Amaro Drive. To get to Cox Science Center Room 166, please enter either the front or the back entrance. From the front entrance, cross the Cox Lobby and take a right at the glass doors; down the corridor you will see the meeting room. If you are entering the Cox Science Center from the back entrances (i.e. the parking entrances), then please enter through any of the glass doors and take a left down the corridor to the meeting room. Call 305-284-5364 for further instructions to reach the Cox Science Center.
A sample of what's to come in our May 5 program by Hank Poor
MBC Quarterly Meeting at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden Sunday, May 5, 2013, 1:00 pm
Paul and Swanee DiMare Science Village, Classroom, First Floor
Hank Poor is among the best and most innovative macro photographers in the country, and we are privileged to have him as a member of our Miami Blue Chapter. At our quarterly meeting in May, we will see some of Hank Poor's recent and ever more spectacular macro images that go away beyond what our eyes can see -- and we will visit Hank's lab, where his magic happens, in the new Paul and Swanee DiMare Science Village, adjacent to the Clinton Family Butterfly Conservatory. Those who have not visited the conservatory may want to seize the opportunity. Better, plan to come early for lunch at the Glasshouse Cafe, which affords great views of the conservatory, and to butterfly in the Garden where there is usually action at the Lisa D. Anness Butterfly Garden, the vine pergola, and wherever nectar and new plant growth can be found. Directions to the Garden can be found at www.FairchildGarden.org. Other questions? Email miamiblue@bellsouth.net.
NABA Butterfly Counts for 2013
Palatka and Delaware Skippers courtesy of Hank Poor and Mikania scandens (a host for the Little Metalmark) courtesy of Linda Evans on the 2013 Shark Valley Spring Count.
In a given year, approximately 450 North American butterfly counts, including approximately 60 Florida counts, are submitted to NABA. For any 15-mile diameter circle counted, three counts may be submitted to NABA's database: a spring count (January 1 through May 31), a summer count (June 1 through July 31) and a fall count (August 1 through December 31).
Our MBC counts include one spring count (Shark Valley, including the Shark Valley Unit of Everglades National Park, the L-67 Canal, among other sites); one fall count (Tri-County/Historic Pinecrest in the Big Cypress, including Loop Road, Oasis Visitor Center, and Jetport Road, among other sites accessed from Tamiami Trail); and three summer counts, Shark Valley, Tri-County/Pinecrest, and our oldest count, the Coral Gables Count, inaugurated in 1994, with a circle that includes Key Biscayne, sites along Main Highway in the Grove, and along Old Cutler Road and Red Road as far south as the Deering Estate. The Coral Gables count circle includes a number of more westerly parks such as A.D. Barnes, Tropical Park, and Kendall-Indian Hammocks Park, which we have never been able to include due to lack of sufficient participants -- but if you live to the west, and can help, we need you!
For new butterfliers, there's no better way to learn your species than to join in counts. Keen-eyed kids are always welcome, too.
For any of our MBC counts, email miamiblue@bellsouth.net for more information and to sign up to participate.
Dates for our 2013 spring, summer, and fall counts are:
Done! Spring Shark Valley: Saturday, April 6 (27 species and 246 individuals seen on a windy, cool day)
Summer, Coral Gables, Saturday, June 29
Summer, Tri-County/Pinecrest, Saturday, July 13
Summer, Shark Valley (including Chekika Unit of Everglades National Park), Saturday, July 20
Fall, Tri-County/Pinecrest, Saturday, November 30
For all butterfly counts, make sure to bring water, snacks and lunch, hat, sunscreen, binoculars, field guides and cameras. Dress for the outdoors and expect to walk. NABA'S PARTICIPATION FEE: $3:00 payable to the team leader of a given count. For Count instructions go to http://www.naba.org/ftp/naba11us.pdf.
Butterfly Walks at Fairchild by Our NABA Chapter Members
10:00 am - 11:00 am
Sunday, April 28, May 5, 12, 19, 26
Saturday, April 27, May 11, 18
A White Peacock, often seen at Fairchild, courtesy of Bill Perry.
Meet at the Visitor's Center and join Linda Evans, President of Miami Blue Chapter-NABA, or MBC-NABA member, Trish Swinney, for a Sunday guided Butterfly and Plant Walk through beautiful Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Saturday tours are by MBC-NABA member Glenn Huberman. Learn about the butterflies of South Florida and the plants on which they depend. Get to know the one acre Lisa D Anness Butterfly Garden for your personal butterfly garden inspiration. The Garden is located at: 10901 Old Cutler Road, Coral Gables Florida, 305 667-1651; www.fairchildgarden.org.
Click the Miami Blue's Calendar button for details on all events ... except the following (NABA members, email us to take part in Schaus' Swallowtail and FNAI Imperiled Butterfly Surveys: miamiblue@bellsouth.net.
Schaus' Swallowtail Surveys: May & June 2013
Year 3 of the Schaus' Surveys will span a longer season in 2013: all of May and June. Once again, MBC will organize the North Key Largo component of the overall effort, which is orchestrated by the US Fish & Wildlife Service and Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, with field work implemented by the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, Biscayne National Park, and MBC-NABA. Check your May and June calendars -- both week-days and week-ends. If you would like to take part, email miamiblue@bellsouth.net.
Images of the Schaus' Swalllowtail courtesy of Jaret Daniels, McGuire Center for Lepidoptera & Biodiversity (ventral), and Linda Cooper (dorsal).
Ongoing Surveys of Imperiled South Florida Butterfly Species
Photo by Ron Nuehring: Silver-banded Hairstreak is an imperiled species.
Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI) Survey of Imperiled South Florida Butterfly Species is our biggest in-the-field citizen science endeavor in the protected pinelands, hammocks and wetlands of Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties -- as well as parks and gardens -- in search of two dozen species of concern. Our volunteer efforts and field skills make this three-year state funded effort possible. Our traditional NABA all-species counts add yet more to the butterfly population picture. More details are on our Conservation Page.
NABA counts are open to all and are posted on our web calendar. FNAI surveys are NOT posted on our public calendar due to restricted access to many of the areas being surveyed. If you are a NABA member, you love to go butterflying, you like learning about new places and rare butterfly species, and you want to learn more about FNAI surveys, please email miamiblue@bellsouth.net.
What's New (or old, but still interesting) at Miami Blue
"Butterflies of Subtropical South Florida," Miami Blue Chapter's interpretive photographic exhibit, continues at Long Key Natural Area and Nature Center, Davie (3501 Southwest 130th Avenue Davie, FL 33330; 954-357-8797; www.broward.org/PARKS/LONGKEYNATURALAREA).
Photos courtesy of Ron Nuehring & Michelle Wisniewski
Conservation
Several of North America's most critically imperiled butterflies occur in our own backyards. Habitat loss, natural disasters, exotic predators, and anti-mosquito spraying have taken their toll over recent decades. Our current focus includes supporting the protection of the remaining populations of the newly federally protected Miami Blue, Hemiargus thomasi bethune-bakeri, elevating awareness of the declining Schaus' Swallowtail, Papilio aristodemus ponceanus, and assisting the Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI) to locate and track other on-the-brink imperiled South Florida butterflies such as those relying upon the few remaining intact pine rocklands, such as the Florida Duskywing, Bartram's Scrub-Hairstreak, and Florida Leafwing, among several others in South Florida considered declining and in jepardy. A list of Southeast Florida's species of concern, Rare or Endangered Butterflies of Southeast Florida, is on our Conservation page.
Thanks to Linda Cooper for her photo of the Florida Leafwing, and to M ichelle Wisniewski for images of Bartram's Scrub Hairstreak and the Florida Duskywing.
Our Federally-Listed Endangered Miami Blue
Thanks to Mickey Wheeler for images of the Miami Blue when it could still be found in the Lower Keys.
On April 6, 2012 the Miami Blue was officially designated an endangered species, bringing South Florida the dubious distinction of having two federally endangered butterflies (the Schaus' Swallowtail was listed in 1984; read its story on our Conservation page). We now await news from the US Fish &U Wildlife Service about steps that will be taken in the management plan for the Miami Blue. If you want to bone up on the Miami Blue's decline, read Dennis' Olle's Fall 2010 article in American Butterflies. The Emergency Listing document for the Miami Blue offers extensive background on the butterfly's decline and can be found at: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FWS-R4-ES-2011-0043-0002.
Atala Relocation Project
Atala photos courtesy of Ron Nuehring.
Here is where butterfly gardening and butterfly conservation show off their strong connection! Once thought extinct, now listed by FNAI as imperiled, and often ephemeral even at its best, Atalas can be menaces to rare cycads. A NABA project has designated point persons who receive Atala caterpillars and pupae on a routine schedule and arrange transfer to interested gardeners, as well as parks and natural areas, with viable habitat for the butterfly. The project has been mounted by Miami Blue and Broward Chapters, in collaboration with NABA member, Sandy Koi, Atala researcher, at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Interested? Read more on our Conservation Page.
About the Miami Blue Chapter
The Miami Blue Chapter of the North American Butterfly Association is located in southeast Florida and named after one of our rarest butterflies. Our chapter is working hard to meet the challenges of the 21st century as they apply to butterfly interests. The photos at the top of the page are of our rare namesake, the Miami Blue butterfly, and the only easy-to-reach location where they could be found until 2010, Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys.
Help support the Miami Blue Chapter by ordering your on-line purchases through Amazon.com. It's easy! When you make an on-line purchase, go to Amazon.com by first clicking on the amazon.com logo below. The Miami Blue Chapter will receive a small monetary rebate.
