A small, drab butterfly lifts spirits on a dark, dreary day

But, then, as we started out, we saw a small, gray butterfly fluttering around some wet grass in a wooded area — a Carolina satyr, a plain creature that’s one of Georgia’s smallest butterflies. It was enough, however, to boost our spirits: Our count might not be a total washout after all.

Then, someone shouted, “tiger swallowtails,” and pointed to several bright yellow Eastern tiger swallowtails nectaring on a white-flowered mountain mint in a soggy meadow. A few smaller species, including a pretty red-banded hairstreak, also appeared among the swallowtails.

Tromping across the wet meadow, we spied a common buckeye nectaring at a pink meadow-beauty bloom. Then came another shout: “A monarch.” With its great beauty and long-distance migrations, the monarch is one of our most iconic butterflies. Despite the dark clouds above, our gloomy mindsets vanished completely with the sight of the monarch.

In fact, we would see five monarchs during the day, an unusual number for this time of year since monarchs’ fall migration takes place mostly in September and October.

By day’s end, we had tallied 47 butterfly species. “When I got up and saw the weather, I thought we’d be lucky to get past 20 species,” said Delestrez.

IN THE SKY: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: One of the year’s best meteor showers, the Perseid, will peak at about 50 meteors per hour on Tuesday and Wednesday nights (Aug. 12-13) in the northeast sky. The moon will be full tonight — the Fruit Moon. Mercury is low in the east around dawn. Venus and Jupiter rise in the east a few hours before dawn; they will appear close together in Tuesday’s predawn sky. Mars is low in the west and Saturn rises in the east just after dark.

Charles Seabrook can be reached at charles.seabrook@yahoo.com.