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By Pam Owen Special to the Rappahannock News
Every year some hearty folk venture into the summer heat to count monarchs, emperors, admirals, nymphs, satyrs and American ladies. The counters are not students of the human race but rather of the insect order Lepidoptera—butterflies. They’ll also be looking for commas and crescents, coppers and sulfurs, fritillaries, hairstreaks, snouts, mourning cloaks and others.
Around July 4, the North American Butterfly Association starts a butterfly count throughout North America. Volunteer participants select a count area with a 15 mile diameter and conduct a one-day census of all butterflies sighted within that circle. The closest group to Rappahannock that joins in this count is Shenandoah National Park, which does its count in the Page County portion of the park.
However, NABA’s count is not the only one in Northern Virginia. Clarke County is now doing an annual count as part of, its Natural Resources Mapping Project, the first countywide comprehensive survey of flora and fauna in Virginia. The protocol for this project calls for continual counts over the summer on small survey plots by volunteers around the county.
While butterflies have been studied for centuries, we still know little about many aspects of their lives, including the range of some species. As Smithsonian Conservation and Research Center Ecologist Bill
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