Ontario Parks Thanks Its Volunteers
People choose to volunteer in many ways. MacGregor Point, located
on the shores of Lake Huron near Port Elgin has a number of volunteers
who care so deeply about the resource that they dedicate many hours
of their time documenting many of the natural features found within
the park. Mary and Tony Rapati are two of these volunteers.
What started for them as a passive interest in butterflies has
developed into sound observation skills and quality data that the
park and the research community will be able to use as reference
material for many years to come.
The Rapatis demonstrate that there are no age limits or qualifications
to be a volunteer. What you need first and foremost is a love for
the park and a keen interest in contributing to its future.
Ontario Parks and particularly the staff at MacGregor Point salute
volunteers like Mary and Tony who contribute positively to the long-term
knowledge of our resources.
In the following article, Tony and Mary give their account of the
2001 butterfly season.
Butterfly Report 2001
Tony & Mary Rapati
Well, Mary and I completed another year of butterfly hunting and
we were quite surprised at how different this year was to last year.
We expected to see some species new to us because we went to a few
new habitats. We thought we would see all the butterflies that we
had seen last summer, but to our surprise there were some we never
found. No doubt the weather was a big factor. It was mainly rainy
and cool in April & May, warm (but not hot) in June, nice in
August and September and then cool and rainy again in October. We
found that the summer was very dry and the flowers and grasses didn't
seem to flourish as well this year. Maybe this is why the skippers
and crescents were notably reduced in number.
The one species that almost everyone noted, butterfly enthusiast
or not, was the Red Admiral. It was everywhere and the numbers were
astounding! We recorded 725 during the year and 108 in one afternoon
at MacGregor Point Provincial Park in May.
Believe it or not, before this year I had not seen a Painted Lady
(although Mary said she saw some last year). This year they were
phenomenal and came and went through this area in a wave (we counted
almost 300 on the 12th of August). They were obviously migrating
as the numbers dropped to almost nothing the next week.
From what we recorded for our area, there was a distinct downturn
of skippers this year. Some we could not find at all. The European
Skipper was not bad (see notes) but nothing like last year.
The following lists butterflies we expected to see but didn't in
2001:
| Previously Recorded But Not
Seen in 2001 |
| Harvester |
| Striped Hairstreak |
| Eastern Pine Elfin |
| Appalachian Brown |
| Dreamy Duskywing |
| Leonard's Skipper |
| Two Spotted Skipper |
We added some new habitats and that with a bit of luck netted us
(no pun intended), some new species:
| New Species (for us). |
| Purplish Copper |
| Acadian Hairstreak |
| Banded Hairstreak |
| Hoary Elfin |
| Gray Hairstreak |
| Compton Tortoiseshell |
| Crossline Skipper |
| Little Glassywing |
| Common Roadside Skipper |
The Purplish Copper is questionable. Our pictures have gone to experts
and the jury is still out. Some more sleuthing is needed and we
will haunt the area where we found it much more carefully in 2002.
There is a good chance that it was a Dorcas Copper.
We found caterpillars that we had not seen previously by visiting
spots frequented by the butterfly a bit earlier (we also got lucky!):
| Caterpillars We've Found
So Far |
| Black Swallowtail |
| Baltimore Checkerspot |
| Red Admiral |
| Common Buckeye |
| Gray Hairstreak |
| Viceroy |
| Monarch |
The NABA's were fun. We participated in two this past year, the
MacGregor Point Provincial Park NABA and the Bruce Peninsula NABA.
Both were very well attended and both broke their own records from
last year. Mark your calendar for July 6th 2002 (raindate July 7th)
for the next MacGregor Point Provincial Park NABA.
Mary & Tony, Dec 2001
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