First Butterfly of 2024 Contest!

Today we announce the beginning of our First Butterfly (FOY) of 2024 contest. We have done this for several years but have only ever had one winner, Bill McClay in 2022.

How does the contest work? In the comments below, or as a response on our same Facebook post, state your prediction of the date of our first sighting, and which species of butterfly it will be. And if you are correct, you will receive a $30 gift certificate for use in the Butterfly Ridge gift shop.

Believe it or not, in southeast Ohio, we have a few butterfly species that overwinter as adult butterflies. Those species include Eastern Comma, Question Mark, and Mourning Cloak. With a few warm days in a row, these butterflies will escape their hiding places to fly around. Once the weather turns cold again, they will retreat back to their hiding place.

How do we make this first sighting? We monitor the weather forecast for multi-day unseasonably warm spells starting mid-February. On the second day of the warm spell we start putting bait on our bait sticks. We then check the sticks every few hours as well as setting up our Go-Pro video camera next to a stick.

Previous first sightings have included:

February 27, 2019 - Eastern Comma March 28, 2020 - Eastern Comma March 6, 2021 - Eastern Comma March 5, 2022 - Eastern Comma February 23, 2023 - Eastern Comma

Entry deadline is February 11 at midnight. Only one entry per person. Good luck to everyone!

Pictured: Mourning Cloak, Question Mark, Eastern Comma