Collecting at Albany Hill (Albany, California) 4/10/17. After our trip to Canyon trail Park, we decided to take a visit to Albany Hill to see if we could have some luck with the western tiger swallowtails (Papilio rutulus) there. Albany Hill is hands down the best rutulus habitat we seen around here - there is a nice long creek at the bottom of the hill (Cerrito Creek), surrounded with lush green willow trees, a popular host plant. When you get on the hill itself, there is a trail along the creek that is in full sunshine, and it is here that the rutulus love to fly. Last summer we caught several as they flew up and down the path and in the tree tops. Below are pictures of the rutulus habitat (Albany Hill). To make things better, it turned out this habitat isn't just great for one swallowtail, but two - we discovered a huge, vigorous patch of passion vines growing along the creek great for attracting Battus philenor hirsuta. Unfortunately, we didn't see any pipevine swallowtails flying around nor were there any eggs or caterpillars. Anyway, as we hiked up the trail, we immediately saw yellow figures soaring through the air - the rutulus were already up and about during this time of year as we suspected. We went ahead and began chasing after them for the next hour or two and we managed to get two very fresh looking males. One was larger but paler in color (the individual in the top row of photos below), and the other was smaller but darker (the individual in the left and middle photos on the bottom row). There were definitely a few more that we weren't able to catch, such as the individual in the bottom right photo below. When we were close to heading home, we spotted another rutulus up in the tree tops and we went to get a closer look. It turned out it was nectaring on flowers of the tree, which we believe was locust (Robinia sp). It never came down for us to have a chance at catching it, but we managed to get some pretty good shots, though none very close up. While hunting the rutulus, we came across a few other butterflies as well, such as this mourning cloak (Nymphalis antiopa). It was a male and pretty bad in shape - the wings were all torn up on the edges and it had a lot of scratches. We caught one of these last summer as well the same day we caught three rutulus, so it looks like rutulus and antiopa are a typical catches at Albany Hill. We also saw this monarch flying around the entrance of the path but we couldn't catch it. They are a pretty common sight at Albany Hill as well. Like Canyon Trail Park, of the other insects that were at at Albany Hill, damselflies and dragonflies were the most abundant by far. They were everywhere you looked - on the ground, in the sky, and in the grass. Just a careless sweep of the net in a random direction and there would be a few in there. some other insects we saw were these two mating flies perched on a grass blade that we saw right as we were heading back. Since we couldn't really get any good open-winged dorsal shots of the rutulus on the actual trip, we posed one at home just so you can see all the nice patterns. ![]() Authors Alan Liang
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Timeline 2012–2017
Albany, California This timeline is a series of daily posts recording our observations on and experiences with various insects in Albany California and surrounding areas, from 2012-2017. Since we did not publish this site until 2016, posts before that were constructed retroactively. Starting in August 2017, we moved to Ithaca, New York; posts from there on can be viewed at Timeline 2017-present: Ithaca, New York. Archives (1,011)
August 2017 (49) July 2017 (121) June 2017 (79) May 2017 (77) April 2017 (91) March 2017 (35) February 2017 (12) January 2017 (10) December 2016 (12) November 2016 (26) October 2016 (49) September 2016 (84) August 2016 (94) July 2016 (99) June 2016 (53) May 2016 (21) April 2016 (4) January 2016 (1) August 2015 (3) July 2015 (3) June 2015 (2) June 2014 (3) May 2014 (1) April 2014 (3) March 2014 (3) December 2013 (2) November 2013 (2) October 2013 (5) September 2013 (11) August 2013 (15) July 2013 (9) June 2013 (5) May 2013 (4) April 2013 (3) March 2013 (2) February 2013 (3) January 2013 (2) December 2012 (2) November 2012 (1) October 2012 (2) September 2012 (2) August 2012 (5) July 2012 (1) June 2012 (1) Authors
![]() ![]() Full Species List (Alphabetical by scientific name) Note: - Not every species we encounter is necessarily presented on this site, rather a selection of those that were of particular interest to us and that we felt were worth documenting. - We can't guarantee that all species have been identified accurately, particularly taxa we are not as familiar with. Lepidoptera Actias luna Adelpha californica Agraulis vanillae Allancastria cerisyi Antheraea mylitta Antheraea polyphemus Anthocharis sara Argema mimosae Attacus atlas Battus philenor hirsuta Bombyx mori Caligo atreus Callosamia promethea Coenonympha tullia california Citheronia regalis Cricula trifenestrata Danaus plexippus Eacles imperialis Erynnis tristis Estigmene acrea Eumorpha achemon Eupackardia calleta Furcula cinereoides Heliconius erato Heliconius hecale Heliconius sapho Heliconius sara Hyalophora cecropia Hyalophora columbia Hyalophora euryalus Hylephila phyleus Hyles lineata Junonia coenia Langia zenzeroides formosana Lophocampa maculata Manduca sexta Morpho peleides Nymphalis antiopa Orgyia vetusta Orthosia hibisci quenquefasciata Pachysphinx modesta Papilio cresphontes Papilio eurymedon Papilio glaucus Papilio machaon oregonius Papilio multicaudata Papilio polyxenes asterius Papilio rumiko Papilio rutulus Papilio zelicaon Phyciodes mylitta Phyciodes pulchella Pieris rapae Plejebus acmon Poanes melane Polites sabuleti Polygonia satyrus Pyrgus communis Rothschildia jacobaeae Samia cynthia advena Samia ricini Smerinthus cerisyi Smerinthus ophthalmica Strymon melinus Trichoplusia ni Uresephita reversalis Vanessa annabella Vanessa atalanta Vanessa cardui Unidentified Lepidoptera Hybrids Papilio glaucus × Papilio rutulus Papilio polyxenes asterius × Papilio zelicaon Orthoptera Melanoplus devastator Phaneroptera nana Pristoceuthophilus pacificus Scudderia mexicana Trimerotropis pallidipennis Phasmatodea Carausius morosus Phyllium giganteum Mantodea Mantis religiosa Phyllocrania paradoxa Hymenoptera Apis mellifera Bombus vosnesenskii Brachymeria ovata Linepithema humile Pediobius sp. Polistes dominula Xylocopa varipuncta Unidentified Diptera Lucilia sericata Unidentified Hemiptera Brochymena sp. Leptoglossus sp. Nezara viridula Odonata Argia vivida Libellula croceipennis Coleoptera Coccinella septempunctata Cycloneda polita Diabrotica undecimpunctata Hippodamia convergens Araneae (Class: Arachnida) Araneus diadematus Phidippus johnsoni |