Bugs

Insects in Rockland County and Orange County

June 2, 2010 by Corey 3 Comments

I spent a great day on Saturday, 29 May, visiting a variety of parks in Orange County and Rockland County in downstate New York with a fellow Queens birder, Seth, and a Rockland County birder, Gene.  Though, really, to call either of them “birder” doesn’t give a complete picture of what they are about considering the diverse array of life forms that pique their interest.  Over the course of the day we looked at birds and plants and dragonflies and reptiles and mammals and butterflies and amphibians and more but a single blog post could not contain the images I got of all of those things.  This post, therefore, is focused on just insects, which are, of course, ridiculously diverse.  If you want to see the reptiles and amphibians from the trip, well, just click here, and if you want to see birds from the trip, click here.

I am indebted to Patrick and Karlo and Steve who all helped me identify these insects.  Birds are difficult enough; when it comes to bugs I tend to try to get pictures and identify them later with field guides in hand.  I was pleasantly surprised when I managed to identify a couple of relatively difficult butterflies on my own and even more pleased to find the wasp I was trying to identify in the Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, though, of course, and somehow not surprisingly, it turned out to be not a wasp but a fly.

Enough explaining how this birder managed to identify bugs; it’s time for the pictures!

Dreamy Duskywing Erynnis brizo

one of North America’s fifty or so Mydas flies, Mydas tibialis

Red-spotted Purple Limenitis arthemis

Arrowhead Spiketail Cordulegaster obliqua

Peck’s Skipper Polites peckius

Blackberry Looper Moth Chlorochlamys chloroleucaria

Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.