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Rick Borchelt

@rickborchelt.bsky.social
70 followers 11 following 263 posts

Science and natural history writer, field naturalist, garden and botany enthusiast. The Three B's: Birds, butterflies, and botany are key interests. Support citizen and community science!

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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Aaron's Skipper (Poanes aaroni) was an uncommonly common consolation prize at Bombay Hook NWR in Delaware yesterday on my futile hunt for one of several Ruffs in the coastal marshes.
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Falcate Orangetips are having a good flight year in Maryland. We saw many on our annual spring butterfly count Saturday in Green Ridge State Forest. Three guesses how they got their name.
Black and white butterfly with orange forewing tips settled on an observer's hand
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Pretty chuffed to find last Saturday what is apparently only Maryland’s second record for Common Claybank Tiger Beetle. With Barry Marts, who took the pic. You can see why they used to be called “green-margined tiger beetle”!
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Plouff Creek MN butterfly count helps assess Nabokov’s blue populations www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/de...
Nabokov Blue butterfly on a Vaccinium leaf (USDA Forest Service photo by R. Pennesi)
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
2026 horticulture, research, and archivist internships announced for the US National Arboretum; deadline is January 19. leplog.wordpress.com/2025/12/22/u...
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
New azure butterfly species named in tribute to slain Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska www.the-independent.com/news/world/a...
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
While the prevailing wisdom is that butterfly populations are in steep decline worldwide, a century and a half of observations in Indonesia found -- short term trends notwithstanding -- no overall declines in butterfly species richness on Sulawesi royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
One of the new (to me!) butterfly species I was able to observe on my recent Arizona trip, this one from Cave Creek Canyon. Ares Metalmark, Apodemia ares,
Brown and orange butterfly on a flat yellow flower
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
How rare butterflies show impacts of climate change on South Florida www.miamiherald.com/news/local/e...
Miami blue butterflies on a green leaf
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
New Study: Cold Winters Stop Species from Moving Northward Due to Climate Change www.idw-online.de/-DRTzAA
Orange wall brown butterfly on a blue flower
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Red-banded Hairstreak is Vermont's 120th confirmed butterfly species for the state's lep fauna val.vtecostudies.org/newsfeed/new...
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
A rather steamy trip to the National Arboretum yesterday yielded this red-banded hairstreak “tail/rubbing” to distract predators with this “false head” complete w faux antennae
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Experts stunned after record-breaking surge in rare butterfly sightings: 'None of us want summer 2025 to ever end' <https://www.thecooldown.com/outdoors/purple-emperor-butterfly-population-uk/>
purple emperor butterfly on bare soil and rocks
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Dozens of Delaware Skippers (an S3 Vulnerable species in the State) today at MD’s Eastern Neck NWR
Orange butterfly on a pink milkweed flower
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
A new report, co-authored by Washington State University conservation biologist Cheryl Schultz, provides a roadmap for recovering butterfly populations across the U.S. xerces.org/publications...
A blue and brown female Karner Blue butterfly
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Eurasian Comma watching the tourists wander past obliviously at the Kew Waterlily House
Orange butterfly with black spots on a vivid green leaf
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
David E. Dix: Kent State scientist details butterfly research, why it matters www.record-courier.com/story/opinio...
Orange and black monarch butterfly on a flat orange tithonia flower
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
Variegation is all the rage in the Cruickshank Botanic Garden at the University of Aberdeen, where a Green-veined White (Pieris napi) rests on a variegated hosta
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
Green-veined white was flying in numbers today over the heath at Well of the Lecht in Cairngorms NP. As soon as a cloud obscured the sun, even briefly, the whites would drop like stones into the vegetation. This one is nectaring at the larval host plant, cuckoo flower, Cardamine pratensis.
White butterfly with green veins in its wings on a pink cuckoo flower
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Brown Argus on the chalk grassland in South Downs NP (UK) are similarly coloured to female Common Blues but *much* harder to spot
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
One of many Green Hairstreaks ( Callophrys rubi, as the name suggests actually an elfin rather than a standard hairstreak) basking in a rare moment of sunshine at South Downs National Park UK
Bright green butterfly nectaring at a bramble blossom
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
A fresh second-brood Summer Azure (Celastrina neglecta) egg-bombing a New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus) bud cluster.
Small light blue butterflies laying eggs on a cluster of green flower buds
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Northern Cloudywings (Cecropterus pylades) are in flight in western MD now, timed (as usual) with the bloom of various brambles like blackberry and dewberry. Here's one hanging from another nectar source, four-leaved milkweed.
Brown robust skipper butterfly drinking nectar from a pink tubular flower
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
First Sachem of the year, this one in my College Park MD yard. Of course, iNat insists on appending "Huron" in front of Sachem (as in "Huron Sachem") which is totally unnecessary as there is NO OTHER SACHEM.
Small brown and yellow butterfly on a blue flower
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
A confiding Olympia Marble (S2 state rare status in Maryland) hangs out on my finger during the Green Ridge State Forest spring butterfly count yesterday. Note the rosy flush of a fresh individual. Photo credit Frank Boyle.
White butterfly with green marbling on a human finger
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
My candidate for the next official addition to the Maryland butterfly fauna list: Gemmed Satyr. Any day now; it's easily within 50 miles southeast and 10 miles or so west. They were flying in Wake Co NC over the weekend.
Brown butterfly with silvery underwing spot held in hand
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Came down early for the @scitalkofficial.bsky.social meeting in Raleigh for a successful snake safari. Found my lifer Queensnake along the Eno River, a specialist predator on newly-molted crayfish. Here's one at top right above a puppy pile of common watersnakes.
Queensnake overlooks a pile of basking common watersnakes
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
An early spring State Rare (S2) butterfly, Olympia Marble, in Allegany Co Maryland [Euchloe olympia]. 2025 March 29.
A green-and-white butterfly held by spade-tipped forceps
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Chemical ecologist Micah Freedman continues legacy of U of T Monarch butterfly research | Faculty of Arts & Science shar.es/agJYmt
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
RSPB petitionsUK Government; any cuts to the farming budget would be a disaster for farmers and nature.https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/news/farming-petition-budget-cuts
Common blue butterfly on a brown grass stalk
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Smaller arable fields and organically managed crops in the surrounding landscape are key to pollinator diversity in Bavaria's calcareous grasslands, although increasing the size of the habitat is still preferable for pollinator protection royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Mating Polyomattus blue butterflies in grassland, photo by Carolin Biegerl
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Butterfly Conservation Ireland questions Ireland's official initiative to preserve Marsh Fritillary butterflyconservation.ie/wp/2025/02/0...
An orange and black marsh fritillary butterfly rests on green grass blades
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Prairie sites in Oklahoma managed with prescribed fire alone had the most diverse butterfly communities in comparison to three other management methods (cattle grazing, bison grazing, or haying in combination with prescribed fire) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
New Mexico Rare Arthropod Resource website launches to help conserve arthropod species--New website to aid state’s rare, endemic, and threatened insects and spiders news.unm.edu/news/new-mex...
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Strong evidence that numbers of UK butterfly species declined in areas with high levels of nitrogen pollution in the 1990s, yet the overall total number of butterflies was not affected jncc.gov.uk/news/impact-...
Orange and brown Gatekeeper butterfly
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
It’s not just animals that make sounds of distress when they’re under attack or otherwise stressed. Plants do too, especially when they are suffering from drought or other adverse environmental conditions. And moths are listening. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
African cotton leafworm, or Mediterrean brocade moth
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Editorial: New approaches to modeling for endangered butterfly conservation (Dakota Skipper) www.frontiersin.org/journals/eco...
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
"We found no overall change in the number of monarchs over the past few decades" using NABA count data--Federal protection for monarch butterflies could help or harm this iconic species, depending on how it's carried out. www.msn.com/en-us/news/t...
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 27/09/2024
Bronze Coppers flying in coastal marshlands in MD. A species of conservation concern for us. #lepidoptera
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 16/08/2024
Rare butterfly subspecies only found on Pa. military base should be listed as endangered, feds say. Eastern subspecies of Regal Fritillary is the butterfly in question #LepLog phys.org/news/2024-08... photo CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 11/05/2024
A somewhat early Sachem, Atalopedes huron (nee campestris), on some Peach Drift landscape roses at Patuxent Nursery near Bowie MD this afternoon. #LepLog #lepidoptera
Tawny orange butterfly on pink rose
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 15/04/2024
Over A Century Ago, These Blue Butterflies Inhabited The Sand Dunes Of San Francisco, But Since Then, They Have Been Declared Extinct #LepLog #lepidoptera www.msn.com/en-us/news/t...
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Rick Borchelt @rickborchelt.bsky.social · 06/12/2023
How a US biologist single-handedly saved the California pipevine swallowtail from extinction #LepLog #lepidoptera gn24.ae/106670a4bb96...
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