ron284's Identifications

Southern Pinellas County butterfly count with Clint Gibson. We covered two areas (with multiple stops at each); the northern Sunshine Skyway causeway and Pinellas Point Park/Katherine B. Tippetts Park.

The Sunshine Skyway causeway is manmade and is vegetated with mangroves, Australian-pines, and a diversity of native and exotic shrubs, grasses, forbs. One of the native forbs, Annual Seepweed, is the host plant for the Western Pygmy-Blue, a butterfly discovered in Florida in the Tampa Bay area in 2021. We counted/estimated 860 Western Pygmy-Blues in a few acres here!

Pinellas Point Park and Katherine B. Tippetts Park (essentially the easternmost 1-2 acres of Pinellas Point Park) are several acres along Tampa Bay, vegetated with mangroves along the water (except where removed by homeowners to see the water), with 50-150 feet of mowed grass before meeting the boundary of private yards. The non-grass vegetation consists of a mix of native and exotic trees and shrubs, and native forbs. I was careful to avoid selecting any individual plant that was planted at some point in the past.

Our schedule was:

0900-1037: the western portion of the northern Skyway causeway, part of Skyway Fishing Pier State Park.

1042-1220: the eastern portion of the northern Skyway causeway, west of Skyway Beach, mostly along the paved road east of the north access lanes to Interstate 275. This is a strip of unmowed vegetation 5-30 feet wide and 0.5 miles long (north to the barricades in the road) that is grown abundantly to various low, flowering plants. We counted more than 100 Southern Skipperlings here!

1235-1410: Pinellas Point Park/Katherine B. Tippets Park; mostly the former site.

Clint and I ended our count at 1410 and Clint returned me to my car at Skyway Bridge Rest Area.

1441-1541: I thought that I had lost my field notebook somewhere on the Skyway causeway, so I returned to our two sites and spent an hour looking for the notebook, mostly on the eastern side of Interstate 275. I was mostly concerned with finding my notebook, but I did take some photographs. Many Southern Skipperlings were perched on the vegetation, "airplaining" with their wings held out. I could have photographed a few dozen individuals if I had wanted to.

On my way home, I stopped at a Taco Bell for dinner, and I found my notebook inside my wallet. I always place my notebook in my right rear pocket, so I can't explain how it ended up in my right front pocket. But I'm happy it was there!

Finally, here is our butterfly list compiled by Clint Gibson:

I-275 Areas:

Checkered White – 59
Dainty Sulphur – 83
Barred Yellow – 24
Statira Sulphur – 8
Ceraunus Blue – 25
Western Pygmy-Blue – 860
Phaon Crescent - 61
Gulf Fritillary – 4
White Peacock – 8
Western Pygmy-Blue – 860
White Checkered Skipper – 139
Fiery Skipper – 5
Obscure Skipper – 1
Southern Skipperling – 106

Pinellas Point Park area:

Giant Swallowtail – 1
Spicebush Swallowtail – 1
Checkered White - 4
Dainty Sulphur – 13
Cloudless Sulphur – 2
Statira Sulphur – 7
Ceraunus Blue – 16
Western Pygmy-Blue - 29
Gulf Fritillary – 10
White Peacock – 31
Monarch – 4
White Checkered Skipper – 37
Fiery Skipper – 27