unidentified Satyrium hairstreak ~ 06/22/14 ~ Chews Ridge

unidentified male Satyrium hairstreak

posted 10/11/14 - This ID has had me stumped ever since June.  Both photo series are of the same individual as I turned around to capture different lighting angles.  It would have been great to get a photo of the topside (dorsal) wing color and abdomen to help ID, but that didn't happen.  As I was asking Chris his thoughts as to what it was, he forgot it was simply sitting on my finger and it promptly flew away into the sun when he made a sudden movement.  That's the handicap I've given myself this year by not collecting specimens.  Honestly, I didn't want to deal with lugging around a net and killing jar, pinning and spreading, and not to mention permit paperwork.  I think scrutinizing photos has been a good learning tool for me, but as evidenced here, it's not perfect.

I sent one of the lighter-colored pics around to my trusted butterfly posse (I hope they don't mind me calling them that), and I received a surprising variety of answers.  Their suggestions for ID are as follows (links open in new windows for photo comparisons):

gold-hunter's hairstreak (Satyrium auretorum) - BOA, BugGuide, Flickr

mountain mahogany hairstreak (Satyrium tetra) - BOA, BugGuide, Flickr

hedgerow hairstreak, aka sepia hairstreak (Satyrium saepium) - BOA, BugGuide, Flickr

I also trust Butterflies of America (BOA) more than self-reported ID sites like BugGuide and Flickr, which both have a few ID errors.  Even UC Irvine's Butterflies of Orange County has what I believe is a gold-hunter's in the middle of hedgerows.  These look-alike spp. are not well-illustrated in my field guides, so we're not alone in our uncertainty.  Can you ID?

ps - After initially insisting it was a mt. mahogany because of how dark it was, I'm now leaning towards a hedgerow hairstreak, mainly because of the tailend patterning.  There's a notable lack of any orange near the tails, which even if worn would have been an indication for gold-hunter's.  Besides, the tails are too long to be a male gold-hunter's, I think.  Oh, how do I know it's a male?  The relief of the teardrop-shaped scent gland (stigma) can be seen in the middle of the hindwing in the shadowier photos.

hedgerow hairstreak ~ 06/08/14 ~ Hastings

bronzed hedgerow hairstreak (aks sepia hairstreak) nectaring on chamise

Satyrium saepium chalcis nectaring on Adenostoma fasciculatum

(Tenney and Walker)

Rosaceae

This was our group's last find of the day for the Hastings Count.  It was a long, hot day in a near-futile search for hairstreaks.  Oof.  Maybe we saw 4 individuals that weren't CA hairstreak?  Paul was particularly good at spotting those.  I didn't keep count.  Thankfully, Jerry Powell did.  There are a handful of other small brown butterflies that, from a distance, can look just like the hedgerow hairstreak.  They're tiny, dark, zippy shadows.  Even with binoculars, the hairstreaks have the annoying habit of turning their leading edge towards you so you can't see their wing pattern.  Ya, I'll probably not take a liking to most hairstreaks, because they seem to be best found at the top of very tall buckeye trees or other inaccessible trees, like blue oaks and coffeeberry.  We even resorted to throwing rocks at trees with hopes to flush out the butterflies.  Jerry was particularly skilled at this endeavor with one well-placed hit to the top of a trunk, whereas I was lobbing the first rocks I could find into thin air.  Ha!  This is not regular practice, mind you, just for the annual count's purpose of recording every possible butterfly we can find.  I'll admit I didn't do this for the Pinnacles count I recorded.  I had no idea how to do it before.  Eh, generally, if they play that hard to get, I'm not that interested.  To me, it's easier to search through closer-to-the-ground nectaring plants (although I have found a hedgerow hairstreak on its host plant buckbrush at Pinnacles).  Blooming chamise growing on top of a hill seems to do the job here.  Lots of butterflies like the toppest top.

Chris and Paul prefer using binoculars (pfft, birders.) and have both given me heavy binoculars to pointlessly carry on long, hot hikes.  I'll try most things at least once, and I did try using the special close-focus binoculars for butterflies a few times.  I don't particularly care using them because I have trouble finding and focusing on what are frequently fast moving objects.  Plus, I worry I'll miss seeing the many butterflies that do fly within a few feet of me, as I have seen happen so often when other people are too focused looking through their binoculars.  Eh, the extra effort of hauling them around is not worth the results to me.  I'm not sure if anyone was able to determine the IDs of the ones we saw sitting on the tallest buckeye blooms, anyways.  There you go.   

Oh!  One last ID note, Paul pointed out the rich, suede brown color on the dorsal side of the abdomen also matches the topside wing color.  In the photos above, there's a little nip at the forewing apex that shows the topside color.  Handy-dandy reference, but I already forgot which other hairstreak the comparison was made.  Did, I mention it was a long, hot day?

ps 06/14/14 - Here's the look-alike mountain mahogany hairstreak with a similar nip in the right forewing.  Note the darker brown color with bluish tint of the mountain mahogany.  Considering the tail length, is this a female, then?

hedgerow hairstreak ~ 06/09/11 ~ Pinnacles

hedgerow hairstreak on buck brush

Satyrium saepium on Ceanothus cuneatus var. cuneatus
for more information click here , here, and here
Rhamnaceae

Often when I'm able to capture photos of butterflies, I get them on perches, mud-puddling, or nectaring. For whatever reason, I rarely get them on their reported host plant as shown above. I love the iridescence of the wings and the orange knobs at the end of the antennae.