Here are the results from two sweep samples of insects taken ten years apart at exactly the same location on the Section 16 Trail west of Colorado Springs. In both cases, 100 sweeps were made. In this area, which is relatively undisturbed in terms of regular application of pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides, total numbers of insects seem very similar after ten years. T-Tests, both one-tailed and two-tailed, show p values that do not suggest significance. I chose a date one week later in 2019, as the season appears a bit behind average in terms of butterfly emergence dates.
Wonders along the way were dramatic. This is probably only the second record from Teller County of the California tortoiseshell butterfly. Shelf Road.
A pallid tiger moth still warming up to fly.
The leach mining at Cripple Creek was of an unearthly scale.
And from the Florissant Fossil Beds Quarry, we found a couple of these Curculionid beetles, along with lots of leaves and seeds…
and a chipmunk family in the petrified stumps.
Our group, above the Hole in the Rocks on Shelf Road. All brilliant, all fun.
Crossbills, crossbills, crossbills everywhere.
And the omnipresent golden-mantled ground squirrels.
In the high country, Oeneis uhleri, Uhler’s arctic butterfly, hiding in the weeds.
Pieris napi, the veined white.
A day-flying moth, Schinia persimilis, in the Heliothine subfamily of Noctuidae.
And Parry’s primrose below the alpine rockslides.
This is a mere taste of Colorado’s wonders. If you haven’t been out west, you have a dream to live for. And, Williams people, I’ll send “Riding Out on the Lahar” by email. Other viewers here won’t know what the hell I’m talking about.
