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.

mountain mahogany hairstreak ~ 06/10/14 ~ Pinnacles

mountain mahogany hairstreak

Satyrium tetra

I asked Paul J. his ID of this individual, because I've never knowingly seen a mountain mahogany hairstreak before.  Although, I did note in the Pinnacles Count about seeing a hairstreak with a blue tail end (just like this one!) and was hoping my count partner from the Sequoias had gotten a picture.  Tiny, dark, zippy shadows.  The iridescent sheen looks so much like the hedgerow hairstreak I photographed only 2 days before that I can easily see getting them mixed up on the wing from a distance.  Up-close and depending on the lighting, it's darker than the hedgerow, without the bright copper color, and has an overall blue cast to the underside wings.  Other people note the white flecks in the wings and the pointier forewing tip compared to the hedgerow.  I have a hard time seeing other people's descriptions of shapes, so that doesn't work very well for me.  With the relative lack of tails, this is apparently a boy. 

ps 08/05/14 - Art also pointed out many male hairstreaks have a stigma on the forewing that shows through as a relief.  It's absent in females.

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?

tailed copper ~ 06/03/14 ~ Pinnacles

tailed copper

Lycaena arota

(Shapiro and Tenney)

For such a plain Jane name, this tailed copper really packs a beautiful design punch in such a small package.  It was surprisingly quick, and I only managed 2 photos before it took flight.  I believe this was a male, if I recall the solid topside leather brown color correctly.  The female topsides have golden-hued window panes that seem to glow in a classic butterfly pattern.  I read their caterpillars eat gooseberry.  And, once again, that's CA buckwheat serving up tasty butterfly energy drinks.

western brown elfin ~ 06/03/14 ~ Pinnacles

western brown elfin

Callophrys augustinus (aka Incisalia augustinus iroides)

I followed a tiny dark shadow through the CA buckwheat patch.  In the bright sunlight, I wondered if it might be a hairstreak, like the mountain mahogany or hedgerow.  Nope.  It was so dark, the flash even went off in the second pic, highlighting the Impressionist painting vibe I get under certain lighting conditions.  It surprised me that it's on the wing now, since I last saw brown elfins at Pinnacles in early March.  This one looks pretty fresh, except for the huge bite out of its left wings - that's probably why I was able to approach it several times to take pictures.  This must be a second generation.  Let's see if there'll be a third, or even a fourth generation this year.

western brown elfin on ceanothus ~ 03/24/14 ~ Bass Lake

western brown elfin on ceanothus

Callophrys augustinus (aka Incisalia augustinus iroides) on Ceanothus sp.

As I was trying to get pictures of the unusual-to-me ceanothus, she flew right into focus and sat there.  No nectaring, no laying eggs.  Guess she wanted her picture taken.  So I did.

buck brush

Ceanothus cuneatus var. cuneatus

Rhamnaceae

Now, back to the ceanothus.  Grrr.  I'm most familiar with the buck brush found at Pinnacles in San Benito Co., and it happens to be the last place I saw a western brown elfin.  C. cuneatus is the only sp. on their plant list, which seems odd to me considering Calflora has 82 records of native Ceanothus spp./var. (some are outdated, but still!).  At Pinnacles, the flowers are whiter, the leaves are shinier, and the stems are browner... and there's quite a bit of variation as I just noticed.  I think lots of people are confused about Ceanothus ID, myself included, and many online pictures are too inconsistent to be helpful.

OK, I'll admit, there's a part of me just wishing this to be a different sp.  I did drive over 3 hours, up the hills, suppressing awful memories of childhood car sickness every single time we visited the Sierras (ah, now I remember why I generally avoid the area like the plague).  I want to find something different, dang it!  I tried to convince myself that this is mountain whitethorn (Ceanothus cordulatus). However, it didn't particularly have any thorns, the bushes were taller than me (Jepson eFlora states C. cordulatus is generally < 1.5m), and the leaves are not 3-ribbed from base.  Anyone have a better guess?  Big bushes like these were blooming everywhere in open sunny areas.  It was really stunning.

western brown elfin ~ 03/09/14 ~ Pinnacles

western brown elfin

Callophrys augustinus (aka Incisalia augustinus iroides)

posted 03/20/14 - Eh, it's not as flashy as its Callophrys cousin, the bramble green hairstreak, but I'll take it anytime.  Upon closer inspection (click pic to enlarge), the pink and purple wing scales remind me of Claude Monet's Grainstack (Sunset).  Butterflies were impressionists way before the art movement.  Plus, orange antennal tips always slay me.  Dip your tips in orange, baby.

Nelson's hairstreak and deer brush ~ 05/14/13 ~ Washington

Nelson's cedar hairstreak nectaring on deer brush

Callophrys gryneus nelsoni (aka Callophrys nelsoni, Mitoura gryneus nelsoni)

deer brush

Ceanothus integerrimus

Rhamnaceae

A desire to add new species to my virtual collection has pushed me to use pictures that are heading into the crappy photo category.  The first 2 photos above were taken an hour apart at different spots and are still pretty crappy.  I get frustrated when I just can't manage to get better pictures of what could be now-or-never shots.  I still worry that if I get a fancier camera, I'll spend too much attention attempting to get perfect pictures, instead of focusing on enjoying where I am.  Does that make sense?  It's kind of like how so many people are consumed by their cell phones that they completely neglect the perfectly companionable human sitting right next to them.  I don't want to be like that.

As I was looking back through my entries for hairstreaks or Ceanothus, I noticed how often I've posted various lepidoptera interacting with these ubiquitous bushes: nectaring as shown here, egg laying, larval host, perching.  Cool!  

As two final notes about the deer brush, it was easily the most prolific plant in bloom at Washington, and I noted how not-evergreen the leaves were compared to the Ceanothus found closer to home.

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.