It’s April 9th, 2023 – Happy Eostre Day. At this time last week we were having snow, wind and rain here in Southwestern Colorado. Now the snow is gone, and it finally feels like Spring is here.
I saw my first Colorado butterfly this morning. It was a Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa), fluttering through the Juniper trees.
Most years, Mourning Cloaks are the first butterflies that we see. I wondered why that should be, and so I read up on them a little.
At least some of the adult Mourning Cloaks don’t migrate – they overwinter in tree cavities, under tree bark, even under sheets of bark lying on the ground. And the Butterflies eat tree sap, especially from Oak trees. Which means they don’t rely on flower nectar for food.
Another sign of Spring – last night we heard a few Chorus Frogs calling down in the drainage. I’ve heard their calls described as sounding like somebody dragging a fingernail along the teeth of a comb, and I think that’s a pretty good description.
Here’s a recording of the sound, taken from up on the Forest last year. Listening to to the recording now, I notice that the frogs in the recording have more ‘clicks per second’ than last night’s frogs did. I’m guessing that’s because it was colder last night than it was when I made the recording. It did not occur to me that the frog calls would change as the temperature changed.
So…we’ve got snow in the mountains, the ground is moist, and Spring is here. It’s shaping up to be a good year.
Sources:
Wikipedia.org’s entry on the Mourning Cloak Butterfly.
The ButterfliesandMoths.org entry on the Mourning Cloak Butterfly. This is an especially interesting site.
