Hobomok Skipper butterfly

August 22, 2025

On a warm, sunny afternoon in early April, when it felt like spring might be settling in for good, I went looking for Mourning Cloak butterflies. This butterfly has dark, reddish-brown wings with a lacy-looking yellow edge that reminded someone long ago of the traditional garments worn by people in mourning and they dubbed it a ‘Mourning Cloak’ In Britain, however, they call it a Camberwell Beauty, a name that originated from its discovery in Camberwell, South London in 1748.

**Mourning Cloak butterfly Portman Preserve April 12, 2025**

I spotted my very first “winter” Mourning Cloak a few years ago in late March while there was still snow on the ground! The temperature had climbed to a balmy 65-degrees, but I still didn’t expect to see a butterfly floating languidly over a pile of snow! It seemed so incongruous! Prior to that day in March, I had no idea that some butterflies, like the Mourning Cloak, overwintered as adults!

**Mourning Cloak butterfly three years earlier on the same date and the same location (April 12, 2022 Portman Preserve, Mattawan, Michigan)**

Butterflies that overwinter as adults tuck themselves away in tree cavities, leaf litter, cracks in rocks, loose bark, and the crevices of unheated buildings in order to survive. When they emerge on a warm spring-like day, they feed on tree sap, particularly from oak and maple trees, to regain their strength. If the cold temperatures resume, which they inevitably do, overwintering adult butterflies head back to their hiding places and wait for warmer weather.

**‘Summer’ Mourning Cloak July 9, 2023**

Butterflies that don’t overwinter as adults spend the winter as a chrysalis, a caterpillar, or an egg. Other butterflies, like the monarch, migrate south to find more hospitable accommodations.

When I ventured out in early April looking for a Mourning Cloak butterfly, I was pleasantly surprised to find several of them darting about! I also found a few Eastern Commas, and one tiny Spring Azure butterfly! Spring Azures don’t overwinter as adults like the Mourning Cloaks and the Eastern Commas, but spend the cold winter months as a chrysalis. In late winter or early spring, they emerge as adults, find a mate, lay eggs, and die within just a few days!

**Eastern Comma butterfly April 12, 2025**

**A tiny Spring Azure on April 12, 2025**

After finding these three different butterflies so early in the season, I was hopeful that I would find even more varieties during the month of May. I went to several different nature preserves over the course of that month and managed to find even more butterflies than I did in April, but most of them were very, very small and not particularly colorful. I LOVE finding the bigger, flashier butterflies like the monarchs, fritillaries, and swallowtails, especially when they land on the bright orange butterfly weed, pink swamp milkweed, lavender bee balm, yellow salsify, or the beautiful magenta-colored ironweed. The combination makes for some stunning pictures.

The collection of butterflies I ended up with in May included a Hobomok Skipper, Little Wood Satyr, Pepper and Salt Skipper, Silver Spotted Skipper, Zabulon Skipper, a Wild Indigo Dusky Wing, Red-spotted Admiral, Viceroy, Eastern Comma, and several Pearl Crescents.

In June, I saw my first Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and my first Spangled Fritillary of the season, plus two small butterflies that were different from the ones I had seen in May: a tiny Eastern-tailed Blue, and a little Essex Skipper. Both have wingspans of about an inch!

**Silver-spotted Skipper on Bee Balm June 29, 2025**

July was my very best month for chasing butterflies! There were enough swallowtails, fritillaries, monarchs, viceroys, and red-spotted admirals to keep me happy, and there were a few I hadn’t yet seen during May and June: an American Lady, an Appalachian Brown, a Coral Hairstreak, a Little Glassy Wing Skipper, a Northern Broken Dash, a Northern Pearly Eye, a Tawny Emperor, and an Orange Sulphur. Whew!

**Coral Hairstreak butterfly on Butterfly Weed**

**Little Glassywing Skipper on Bee Balm**

**Northern Broken Dash butterfly on Bee Balm**

August didn’t bring me any new butterflies, but I continued to enjoy the butterflies I had already seen as they fluttered delicately through the various fields of fading summer flowers that I like to visit.

**Black Swallowtail Butterfly on Bull Thistle**

**Eastern Giant Swallowtail on Purple Coneflower**

**Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Ironweed**

**Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, black morph**, **on Bee Balm**

**Great Spangled Fritillary on Butterfly Weed**

If you want to help overwintering insects like Mourning Cloaks and Eastern Commas, you can start by not cleaning up your yard too early in the spring! Leave all that leaf litter beneath your trees and in your gardens. It’s likely to contain overwintering caterpillars, eggs, or adult butterflies. You can also set up a fruit feeding station in the spring with overripe bananas, cantaloupe, or rotting fruit that will provide sustenance for the mourning cloaks and other butterflies that have been overwintering.

To continue enjoying these wonderful butterflies as well as other creatures, we all need to assume responsibility for maintaining as many natural areas as we can, including our own backyards, and refrain from the widespread use of insecticides!

**Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Meadow Salsify**

Habitat loss and the use of insecticides are killing the creatures we love—not just the ones we don’t love!

What saves them, saves us.

July 21, 2023

Every time I set out on a picture walk, I wonder what I’ll find. I wonder if I’ll see something new, or something interesting, or something particularly beautiful. It doesn’t need to be a bald eagle, or a rare insect, or a breathtaking sunrise —although those things are certainly welcome; I mostly enjoy the pursuit of wonder, and the challenge of capturing just the right photo at just the right moment. I am as easily excited about finding a tiny snail on a stalk of a dead plant as I am about finding an exquisite bird I rarely see. It’s the pursuit itself that never grows old, and pushes me out the door every day.

A small Eastern Heath Snail that could easily go unnoticed

Not long ago, I was house-sitting for a friend in a part of our state that I rarely visit. She lives on a seldom-traveled, unpaved country road that quietly meanders into the beautiful and expansive Manistee National Forest. I ventured out on that road early one morning wondering what I might find. The deep shade along the forest road was a welcome relief from the heat, but I wasn’t sure that it would be a good place for pictures. There just wasn’t much light peeking through the trees, except for small patches here and there where the occasional butterfly would land, and the columbines struggled to find sunlight.

The narrow gravel road into the Manistee National Forest

I was captivated by the sound of all the birds singing throughout the forest; their voices echoing melodically through the giant cathedral of trees. One of those birds was louder and more insistent than all the others and I wondered who it might be. Fortunately, Merlin* came to my rescue and identified the mystery vocalist as an ovenbird!

I had never seen or heard an ovenbird before, so I stood quietly on the edge of the road, waiting for any movement in the trees, hoping to get a glimpse of one. It didn’t take long, but the setting was so dark, and the bird moved so quickly, that I didn’t think I’d get a decent shot. Eventually, though, my patience paid off.

When I did some research on this elusive little bird, I was fascinated to find out that ovenbirds are smaller than sparrows, and they will only breed where there are large, undisturbed expanses of mature trees and a closed canopy. The forest canopy needs to be so dense that it severely inhibits underbrush from developing on the forest floor, and allows for a deep layer of leaf litter to accumulate. Ovenbirds spend most of their time foraging in that leaf litter looking for things to eat like crickets, caterpillars, ants, spiders, slugs, and snails. They also need leaf litter to build their nests. This task is left to the female ovenbird who creates a comfy home on the forest floor using dead leaves, grasses, stems, bark, and hair. The finished dome-shaped nest, at 9 inches wide and 5 inches deep, has a squat oval side entrance and resembles a primitive outdoor oven, which is how this bird got its name!

An Ovenbird in the leaf litter with a tasty snack

Halfway through my walk, I came to a wide-open field at the edge of the forest, where an odd-looking bird flew overhead and landed on the top of a utility pole! Even from a distance, it didn’t look like a bird that would normally land on a tall, skinny pole! With long legs, a long neck, and a thin, straight bill, it had the appearance of a fairly typical shorebird. Luckily, the bird on the pole was singing its heart out and Merlin* quickly identified it as an Upland Sandpiper. This particular shorebird, however, loves the prairies, pastures, and croplands rather than the wetlands where its cousins like to hang out! It is also a shorebird that loves to perch on fence posts and perform memorable flight songs over its territories! This bird was behaving true to form!

The long-legged, long-necked Upland Sandpiper on a utility pole!

On my return trip through the forest, I had one more surprise waiting for me– a barred owl! It landed on a branch not far from where I was walking and posed for a few pictures before flying off. Even though barred owls are plentiful in Michigan, this was my first!

In between these discoveries, there were butterflies and wildflowers quietly going about their business in the random patches of sunlight, waiting patiently to be noticed, and I obliged.

It was just another ordinary day of small but incredible wonders that, more often than not, go completely unnoticed.

*Merlin is a free bird identification app

Tag: Hobomok Skipper butterfly

Chasing Butterflies

In Pursuit of Wonder