Killdeer & a butterfly insame day. Spring is here.

[Raven11:11]

Went out to lunch today & saw a dark brown buttefly fly right by our front door & a dew minutes later heard the distinct voice of a killdeer (probably same one) that nests around our sandy parking lot ..

[Howieh]

Yup, spring is here; saw at least two comptons tortoiseshells and a mourning cloak in my back yard today but strangely enough very few birds showed up, in fact for the first time in several weeks my chickadees never appeared at all which is very unusual for this time of year. Btw, your brown butterfly was probably a comptons or an eastern comma (less likely)

[Raven11:11]

hmm... it was dark, black? I did not get too well of a look at it as it was going by quite fast ... does not totally resemble either comptons or an eastern comma based on colour alone. Any other suggestions?

[GStuart]

Mourning Cloak is a dark butterfly with a pale (yellowish) margin.  And it is one of the early butterflies.

[Howieh]

If not a comptons then it must have been a mourning cloak. I'm just back from a walk in my spring butterfly woods. Too many mourning cloaks and comptons to count!! I was just about to get a close up shot of two mourning cloaks in flight with my 100-400 lens when they lead me right across the sun - no damage done but pretty scary at 400mm! I also got a shot of a hawk that I'm not familiar with; mostly dark gray but I don't think it was a turkey vulture. Any ideas sight unseen?

[Raven11:11]

Yup, it was a Mourning Cloak! .... Do you have any links I can check out for overall butterfly references? I am quite new to this (always grown up loving nature) .... but just recently purchased my 1st birding book & have done some research on butterfly species.  Cheers!

[Howieh]

There's lots of good info out there; Google 'butterflies of North America' or ' butterflies of Ontario' for some interesting websites. Here is a good place to start:

    http://www.naba.org/

[Raven11:11]

Will do.