nomolosx's Identifications

A visit after work; only my second visit here -- the first was years ago -- to see if I could find any butterflies or moths. I walked around the southern boundary all the way to Cliff Stephens Park, then walked the northern boundary back to Jet. There were TONS of small moths, caterpillars, and a pupae in oaks and other hardwood shrubs and trees along the northern boundary, while the southern boundary had some blooming (Joe) Bidens that attracted several butterflies. I tried to photograph every moth food plant in case some species are not known to be moth hosts, as well as to hopefully narrow down the moth identification possibilities. Moths were so abundant that walking by nearly every low-growing oak meant that 4, 5, 6, or more moths would fly out. Some landed on my shirt, pants, or hand! I also found a super-cool leafhopper that hopefully can be identified to species.

The park seemed to include centuries-old pines (I think Longleaf Pine but I'm not positive) and Live Oaks; I was not expecting either.

As this is an urban park, there were many exotic plants growing in it. However, I believe that none were intentionally planted -- rather, they naturalized -- so that all plants should be Research-Gradable.

I used my Panasonic Lumix FZ80 for all non-macro photographs, and I used my Samsung A52 cell phone for macro-photography.

The weather at my arrival was sunny and 73 degrees ("feels like" 73) with a light breeze. I left around 1635 and battled traffic all the way home.

I am submitting 180 records from Kapok Park.

Blacklighting at Bill Baggs with permission. I set up several sheets and this was on a sheet near the power lines, lit by two blacklights hooked up to USB battery packs.

Full moon and windy conditions limited how many insects I got (there were almost no mosquitoes, a bad sign when it comes to blacklighting). See link at the bottom for details about my various set ups for the night and my 2024 CNC in general.

My blacklighting observations from Baggs:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2024-04-26&order=asc&order_by=observed_on&place_id=any&project_id=blacklighting-florida&user_id=joemdo

Video showing the lights I use for a typical setup:
https://youtu.be/tavmTa7WoPk

Blacklighting project for Florida: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/blacklighting-florida

More details in general about my 2024 City Nature Challenge here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/joemdo/93673-city-nature-challenge-2024