Central Louisiana Birding & Wildlife: August 2019

Long-tailed Skipper -- Sicily Island Hills

Related Posts
June-July visits to SI Hills, with links to earlier visits:
https://falloutbird2014.blogspot.com/2019/08/sicily-island-hills-catahoula-parish.html

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On August 19 I decided to make another trip to Sicily Island Hills (JC "Sonny" Gilbert WMA or Sicily Island Hills WMA) in northern Catahoula Parish. Before getting there, I made a short detour to Fort Beauregard Historical Park in Harrisonburg, a location which I haven't been to since last fall. Below are habitat shots and the bird list for this stop at Ft. Beauregard, before moving on to Sicily Island Hills.

Ft. Beauregard HP

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Fort Beauregard Historical Park
8:45 a.m., 24 mins; 0.25 miles
80-81 F.; sunny; calm

Birds
Mourning Dove - 1
Red-headed Woodpecker - 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker - 1
Pileated Woodpecker - 1
Northern Flicker - 1
Eastern Kingbird - 1
Blue Jay - 2
Tufted Titmouse - 1
Cliff Swallow - 7
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - 6
Carolina Wren - 6
Eastern Towhee - 2
Hooded Warbler - 3
Pine Warbler - 1
Summer Tanager - 1
Northern Cardinal - 3
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Sicily Island Hills

At Sicily Island Hills, I drove the length of the main road in the southern part of the WMA (goes north and west for around 4 miles), walked the roughly half-mile maintained section of the road that turns left at the self-clearing kiosk ("primitive campground road"), about 0.3 miles of the next side road on the left north of the kiosk (the one that was partly logged a few years ago), and made a short walk down the steep hillside most of the way to Big Creek near the west end of the main road. On the way back out, I stopped off at Rock Falls Trail, and walked approx. 0.3 miles of the trail to a point a good ways upstream from the falls.
habitat shots:

main road

primitive campground road

next side road north of kiosk

main road

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There's an area toward the western end where the habitat takes on a more "piney woods" character.

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going down to Big Creek

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Big Creek

Rock Falls / Rock Creek

Rock Falls

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Rock Creek above the waterfall

Rock Falls Trail

Bird activity was slow at Sicily Island Hills, which is to be expected at this time of year. Singing was intermittent, and many species that were easy to find earlier in the breeding season went undetected. However, family groups of some passerines could be seen foraging in the trees.
(video: Summer Tanager)

There was a series of Wild Turkey tracks at one location.

The roads (main road and side roads) had been mowed recently, reducing the amount of nectar sources for butterflies. However, there was still a fair amount of Whiteleaf Mountainmint (or a similar species of "mountainmint" Pycnanthemum) and Butterfly Pea along the the edges that escaped cutting, and the butterflies were busy nectaring on them.
Clouded Skippers were the first seen stirring, shortly after I arrived. They were frequenting Butterfly Pea along the road.

Clouded Skipper nectaring on Butterfly Pea

By the time I reached the self-clearing kiosk, Lace-winged Roadside-Skippers and Red-banded Hairstreak were nectaring on the mountainmint against the embankment across the road.

Lace-winged Roadside-Skipper nectaring on mountainmint

Red-banded Hairstreak nectaring on mountainmint

I walked the primitive campground road, and found Red-banded Hairstreaks to be abundant there.

Red-banded Hairstreaks on mountainmint -- primitive campground road

Swallowtails and skippers were also present in nice numbers along the primitive campground road.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail nectaring on mountainmint -- primitive campground road

ET Swallowtail ...

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail ...

Giant Swallowtail -- primitive campground road

Southern Broken-Dash -- primitive campground road

Southern Broken-Dash

A highlight of the day was seeing two Long-tailed Skippers while walking this road. These were my first of the year.

Long-tailed Skipper -- primitive campground road

Walking a part of the next side road north of the kiosk (the one that was logged a few years ago) I found butterflies at a couple of patches of mountainmint, but not as many as I'd have hoped. Additional butterflies were seen at mountainmint and occasionally Butterfly Pea as I continued driving along the main road.

lynx spider attempting to ambush Lace-winged Roadside-Skipper

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That was close!

Dun Skipper nectaring on mountainmint (same in vid. below) -- main road, west of Rock Falls

Monarch -- main road

Monarch

Along the Rock Falls Trail there were a few Carolina Satyrs and 'Astyanax' Red-spotted Purples. The primary reason that I decided to walk the trail despite being pretty dog-tired by that point was to check for Southern Pearly-eyes at a spot upstream from the falls where a friend and I saw three on August 25, 2015.
There were two Southern Pearly-eyes there this day 8/19/2019. The location is where the trail circumvents the wet part of a tiny gully where water seeps out of the base of the hill. The pearly-eyes were landing on the damp black dirt and leaf litter, and flying up and down the gully when disturbed, to land on various low plants. Switch Cane, this butterfly's host plant, is abundant in the woods along the trail.

Southern Pearly-eye

Southern Pearly-eye location

So. Pearly-eye location

While on Rock Falls Trail I spotted two different species of underwing moth. One was on the side of a pine tree on the hillside just below the trailhead. I believe it is a Sad Underwing (Catocala maestosa).

Sad Underwing

The other was on the foot bridge over a tributary gully upstream from the falls. This one had a bold pinkish-red-and-black hindwing pattern visible when it flew. I believe it is a Carissima Underwing (Catocala carissima). When I flushed it again, it returned to the underside of the bridge.

Carissima Underwing

Ebony Jewelwing damselflies were abundant along the streams that the trail crosses. Little Brown Skinks and Five-lined Skinks skittered out of the way in the leaf litter.

Five-lined Skink (changed its mind at the last second about having its picture taken)

Of course I kept an eye out for snakes (prime Canebrake Rattlesnake habitat) but saw none this time.

As mentioned above, there was a lot of Whiteleaf Mountainmint (or similar Pycnanthemum species) and Butterfly Pea (Centrosema virginianum) in bloom in the Sicily Island Hills. There was also a fair amount of Bigroot Morning-Glory and a little bit of ironweed (Vernonia) and a few other things. There were a few Whorled Milkweed still with some flowers in the stretch between entering the WMA and the kiosk. Most of the Spotted Beebalm that grows along the primitive campground road got mowed.
The Osage Oranges were in fruit.

Osage Orange tree

Osage Orange

Its funny that earlier in the season I didn't notice any Coralbean while they were in bloom (bright pink-red flowers), but noticed quite a lot of the plants this time, now that they flowers are gone. However, a few of those seen this time had open seed pods, exposing the bright red (poisonous) seeds.

Coral Bean (Erythrina herbacea) with seed pods

some of the Green Antelope-Horns milkweed which grows in a location in the "piney woods" habitat near the western end of the main road

Below are lists for birds, butterflies, and a few other things.

Sicily Island Hills (JC "Sonny" Gilbert WMA)
9:17 a.m., 6 hrs 37 mins; 5.3 miles
81-93 F.; usually sunny, occasional cloudy spell; usually calm, occasional light breeze

Birds
Mourning Dove - 6
Turkey Vulture - 2
Mississippi Kite - 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker - 5
Downy Woodpecker - 5
Pileated Woodpecker - 3
Eastern Wood-Pewee - 1
Acadian Flycatcher - 2
Great Crested Flycatcher - 1
White-eyed Vireo - 5
Red-eyed Vireo - 3
Blue Jay - 3
American Crow - 2
Carolina Chickadee - 10
Tufted Titmouse - 14
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - 16
Carolina Wren - 14
Hooded Warbler - 9
Pine Warbler - 3
Summer Tanager - 9