Where are the Butterflies?

At my house in Cherokee County, GA, the presence of butterflies has been noticeably minuscule. They emerged in spring as normal, and I photographed the first one on March 28. When the crabapples bloomed the next week, I photographed them enjoying it on April 3. After those early ones, I saw very few but I was busy and then out of town and thought perhaps I just missed seeing them.

Red admiral on May 11 in my yard

In 2014, I blogged about a similar decline in my area, but that year there were butterflies elsewhere as I noted. It seemed that my area was an isolated instance (and there were plenty of skippers which I’m not seeing this year). This year, it’s not just me. Numerous people throughout the state have acknowledged declines in their areas on the NABA – Georgia Facebook page. We’ve been able to acknowledge that “It isn’t just me!” as the reports reached from south Georgia to central, west, east, and north.

Two plants which are normally covered up with tiger swallowtails are blooming now – my Phlox paniculata ‘Jeana’ and my bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora). One hard-working hummingbird is trying to keep up with gathering nectar from the phlox! A clearwing moth pops by now and then as well. In previous years, I’ve photographed 2-3 butterflies sharing the same plant.

What could be the blame for such a statewide decline? Someone suggested it had to do with a wetter than usual spring.  I found an article from 2017 (in Rhode Island) commenting on how a wet spring might affect butterflies: “The wet weather can suppress the population when you have a lot of butterflies wintering as pupa and a lot of small caterpillars.”

Another article – this one from 2009 (another yet of decline) - offered this explanation how wet springs affect them: "In the rainy weather, (butterflies) are sitting ducks, cannot fly and we had so much rain this spring that even if they did emerge, they couldn't find a mate and lay eggs for the next generation," [Pat] Sutton said.

Summer azure in June 2019

People in Georgia are gradually starting to see a few more butterflies in the last few days, but the lack of Eastern tiger swallowtails, our large and abundant state butterfly, is particularly noticeable. Here’s hoping that the population recovers enough to birth the generation that will overwinter for next spring.

In the meantime, keep planting native plants and educating people on the need to avoid pesticides, particularly the increasingly available use of mosquito spraying.