Spring Azure Butterfly

BY: STEVE BIASETTI, GROUP FOR THE EAST END DIRECTOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Photo by M. Adamovic for NYNHP

It is always a delight to spy a Spring Azure butterfly, a welcoming harbinger of the vernal season. At rest with its wings together, this little scrap of paper - smaller than a quarter - may not catch your attention. When taking flight, though, its upper wings flash robin’s-egg/deep-sky/mountain-lake blue to brighten any day. I’m not convinced that the name (azure) reaches chromatic accuracy, but this little butterfly is a “looker” however one describes its appearance.

Last Tuesday I spotted a Spring Azure while walking along the Paumanok Path in Manorville, and it certainly brought a smile to my face. It made me wonder, too. For the past three decades my first sighting of a Spring Azure each year has been during the month of April, with April 5, 2010 being my earliest previous sighting.

This year’s occurrence came roughly two weeks earlier - on March 24, 2020. Is the early date just a fluke, one mere individual emerging from its chrysalid earlier than it should have? There are plenty of examples of this kind in the natural world. Or is my early-emerging Spring Azure a sign of the new “normal” as nature adjusts to the rapid shifts in climate that we are currently experiencing? I wonder…