Purchase Knob Butterfly Walk – Wednesday, August 8

PURCHASE KNOB BUTTERFLY WALK

Photo by Randy Richardson

On the morning of August 8th, 28 Blue Ridge Naturalists and friends met to take advantage of an opportunity to explore Purchase Knob. This 535 acre former private residence abutting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was donated to the Park Service in 2000 and is now used as a research and training facility.  The property features broad high elevation meadows filled with summer wildflowers.

These meadows host a profusion of butterflies and these were the focus of this walk.  Our group was ably led by butterfly expert Gail Lankford.  With Gail’s help we spotted and identified 16 species of butterfly across a series of meadows.  The most common were Pipevine Swallowtails (easily 300 plus), Silver Spotted Skippers, Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, Cabbage Whites, Pearl Crescents, and Eastern Tailed Blues.  But we also saw a few examples of less common species like the Aphrodite Fritillary and Horace’s Duskywing.  A solitary Monarch wandered by to make the day complete.

Our group had lunch on the lawn of the former residence, with marvelous mountain views and a backdrop consisting of hundreds of Green-headed Coneflowers.  When not searching for butterflies, the group had an opportunity to explore an historic cabin, and after lunch Ken Czarnomski led a smaller group to explore the  weather station with its Internet webcam and some wooded trails.  At mid-afternoon our typical summer weather pattern brought rain across the mountains and chased us from the cool meadows at 5000 feet back to the sweltering valleys below.

Photo by Keith Krueger