Results of the 2024 Long Point Butterfly Count

Photo: Monarch butterfly. Photo by Ginette Pieper.

Article by Adam Timpf, NFN Member and Butterfly Count Organizer

Saturday July 6^th, the date of the 2024 Long Point Butterfly Count, was a beautiful day to be out. In total, 32 people spread amongst 12 parties scoured the countryside for winged jewels, logging about 65.5 party hours and 70.5 party kms.

Most groups commented on the lack of butterflies, but remarkably the Long Point count still turned up an excellent 57 species which is above the 10-year average of 54, and just two below the all-time high of 59. As for individual butterflies, our total of 2153 is an increase from last year’s dismal 1764, but below the all-time and 10-year averages of 2607 and 2572.

Of course, these numbers aren’t corrected for the number of participants, amount of effort, and weather conditions. (Let’s leave that to the statisticians at the North American Butterfly Association.) But given that the weather was great on the day, and we had excellent coverage with a good number of participants, I think it’s fair to say we could have hoped for more butterflies to be flying.

Despite the low numbers we still set new count highs for three species:

–Gray Hairstreak – 16 (12 recorded in 2021)
–Silvery Blue – 2 (high of 1 last recorded in 2015)
–Common Sootywing – 12 (4 recorded 3 times)

Other highlights and lowlights are as follows:

–Pipevine Swallowtail – first since 2012 when 1 was found
–Buckeye – first one since 2012 when 26 were tallied
–Red-spotted Purple – only 1 was found, setting a new low, but we have never missed it on the count day
–Monarch – 32 is fewer than last year’s 38 and the all-time average of 52, but it’s not as depressing as the 4, 8, and 9 recorded in 2013, 2015, and 2016 respectively.

Next year the count falls on Saturday, July 5th, 2025, and I hope I can count on you all again! Thank you to all participants for all your efforts.

2024 Long Point Butterfly Count Data: