Risking Norm's wrath (or at least irritation), I have a couple of
questions that arose during a recent visit to Dallas:
1. In my daughter's neighborhood there, I saw and heard cardinals
singing a song that was very different from those I have heard around
here - a long slow trill, very musical, descending slightly in pitch.
Some cardinals (not necessarily the same ones) were also singing songs
very similar to those I hear in MD. Is the long trill familiar to any
of you? Are the cardinals (or some of them) there a different
subspecies than we have in MD? (I discovered that there are up to 18
subspecies of Northern Cardinal from Alaska to Central America, but
couldn't determine the distribution of the subspecies in central-
to-eastern US.)
2. My daughter and I saw a butterfly that I haven't been able to ID. It
seems to be a leafwing, but doesn't quite match any of the pictures in
the 3 books I have easily available (Peterson, Audubon, Kaufman). It
was almost solid orange, like the male Goatweed Leafwing, but it had two
black dashes, parallel to the body, in the forewings (like the female,
but that is a different color). None of my pictures of the male show
those marks. The male Tropical Leafwing has such marks, but there is
patterning in its orange wings (not present in the butterfly we saw),
and it shouldn't be in Dallas. The Florida Leafwing has somewhat
differently shaped marks, and it also shouldn't be in Dallas. Any
suggestions?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Sorry, Norm - couldn't think of an easier way to get answers.
Bob Hartman
Colesville/Silver Spring |