10/20/2019 - 12:30

Submitted by Donald Davis on Thu, 10/24/2019 - 14:50
Location: 
Species: 
American lady
Date and Time: 
Sunday, October 20, 2019 - 12:30
Number Observed: 
38
Type: 
Migrating individual(s)
Wind Speed: 
0
Flight Direction: 
180.00
Description/Notes: 
West Beach, Point Pelee National Park, Wheatley, Ontario. Location precision: estimated within a 600m radius. Observed by Steve Pike, Ontario Butterflies Newsgroup. "Yesterday (October 20th) Jim Burk described a butterfly which sounded to me like a female Checkered White at Black Willow Beach which flew south just as every butterfly we encountered along the West Beach Footpath earlier was doing the same. "He also had a Variegated Fritillary in the same area, the 3rd at Pelee we know of this year (two previously on September 14th). "When I eventually met up with Jim again at the Dunes beach access we had looks at another female Checkered White also flying south. "The entire day (around 10am-3pm) we saw an impressive stream of butterflies flying south along West Beach which consisted of numerous Orange and Clouded Sulphurs, Cabbage White, 10 Buckeyes, 8 Mourning Cloaks, around 50 Question Marks/Commas, approximately 150 Monarchs, approx 38 American Painted Lady’s (which haven’t been at Pelee in numbers for months now) and only 3 Painted Lady’s which have been common through the season up until now and interesting no Skippers of any kind (Fiery has been regular at Pelee the entire season). "Unfortunately I ran out of time to head back to the tip area to see where all these southerly moving butterflies ended up later in the day as it’s likely we missed something else rare."