Alaska Butterflies

Now that it is early/mid July and the weather has warmed up, butterflies diversity has increased greatly. I built something resembling a butterfly net, but it is quite rough. However, it did allow me to catch a few Fritillaries today, both Arctic and Frigga. This makes 3 species of Fritillary for the camp area including Polaris. Also, there are some deep orange Sulphurs flying around, but I've yet to catch one. They have got to be Hecla Sulphur, but I'd like to catch one first before calling it. There was also a small blue butterfly, which I thought had tails and thought was a Western Tailed-blue, but they aren't "supposed" to be around here. I'll probably never see it again. Here is a recap of some of the butterflies from this season.

Polaris Fritillary- on my hand.

Arctic Fritillary

Frigga Fritillary

Booth's Sulphur

On a work related note, we finished banding Ruddy Turnstones and Dunlin, and will probably only band a couple Red and Red-necked Phalaropes. The plots are pretty boring now, most of the birds have hatched or been eaten and only a handful remain. This leaves us with sorting vegetation, collecting insects, and entering data. Luckily, I have enough movies, music and internet to keep us motivated... for now.