I visited the Fletcher Creek Ecological Reserve in Puslinch Ontario when I just could not stand sitting any longer on May 30 2025. I was rewarded with a bounty of beautiful wildflowers and an abundance of basking butterflies including one I had been hoping to see for years!

What Is Flying at the Fletcher Creek Eco Preserve at the End of May?

I was curious to see what butterflies and other flying insects I could find at the preserve at the end of May. I am not a fan of black flies (is anyone?) so I often stay home the first two weeks in June. This time, though, I risked visiting a park with a large adjacent marsh and a quarry. I was expecting mosquitoes at the least, and I did see a few, but it wasn’t bad luckily.

Some Common Orange Butterflies at the End of May in Southern Ontario

A bright Hobomok Skipper and a subtle Duskywing

My first butterfly was a Hobomok Skipper. Luckily for me, it landed long enough to see its markings as there are other small orange skippers out at this time of year. My record photo of this Hobomok Skipper had an unexpected second butterfly that I didn’t notice till I was home: a brown Dreamy Duskywing is also after minerals.

Seeing my first Hobomok for 2025 encouraged me that this risky walk was worthwhile. I was here mostly to try to see a special wildflower but butterflies always make me happy.

A Pearl Crescent poses pleasingly.

My next butterfly, a Pearl Crescent, flew in while I was taking one of my many rest breaks. I was experimenting with using the macro mode on my P950 point and shoot camera and was pleased to try to get a photo of both the flowers and a butterfly. It is hard for me to judge how well I am doing because it doesn’t have the ease of “through the lens” viewing I am used to with my DSLR camera. Given digital photos are free, though, I took lots hoping for a few in focus.

Crescents tend to ‘flap’ their wings open and closed fairly steadily while they are perched. That is useful since having an image of both the top sides and undersides of the wings helps with identification.

Further on, I saw several other Hobomoks and two more Crescents.

I tried to get a good look at each Hobomok, like this one on a strawberry leaf, in case any were actually another species such as a Peck’s. I only found Hobomoks.

I did see another brown and grey Dreamy Duskywing along the trail. It was perched quite far back in a tangle of stems so it took a lot of tries to get an angle for a photo. Luckily, I could sit and rest my calf while I experimented.

I walked a few dozen extra metres down the trail past where you can go down to the water hoping to find a Duskywing right on the road or on the bare earth beside the path but I had no luck. Fortunately, this distant one turned out to be a Dreamy. (Dreamy’s are not readily found near where I live so I especially like finding one.)

A Yellow and Black Butterfly As Big as a Maple Leaf

This Eastern Giant Swallowtail had probably just emerged. Its wings had no noticeable damage and it wanted to perch for long periods of time. I appreciated the chance to get a good look at it.

Not far from here, I also saw a Silver-spotted Skipper but I didn’t get a photo before it shot off. I also saw another Swallowtail that was mostly yellow along the trail, but I didn’t get a close enough look to see if it was a Tiger Swallowtail or another Giant.

Lepidoptera Yes but Butterflies No

I saw several small blue-ish butterflies when I was inching my way past the cedar trees. I wondered if they were some type of Azure as they can look almost white when they fly along the edges of wood lands. One landed and I was surprised to see it was a moth! There are a few other sightings from the Fletcher Creek Ecological Preserve of White Spring Moths which look very similar to my moth.

I recognized this White-striped Black moth which I have seen many places. They don’t often cooperate for photos and this one was no exception. And yes, that is “Leaves of Three Let It Be” that it is perched on. There is lots of poison ivy at Fletcher Creek including some ready to attack an unwary weary visitor as it curls under and around a birch-bark bench ….

A few White-spotted Sables were also flying but none co-operated for a photo.

At another stop, I was taking photos of a type of fleabane mysteriously named Robin’s Plantain, when a moth photobombed me !

I have only this one photo because it flew in, tried for a snack, and flew off again between the first photo and the third. It is either a Snowberry Clearwing moth or its look alike a Dierville Clearwing moth. Whatever its name, it made me laugh and I loved seeing it appear like a hummingbird and then zip off again.

Just When I Forgot to Look for One, I Found a New-to-Me Butterfly!

The trip back to the car was exhausting. My calf was making me well aware of how much I was pushing my luck walking over 3 km with an injury. So I made sure to stop even more frequently and for longer each time hoping to be able to walk the following day. At one stop, I saw a butterfly skitter up and down onto the path again. Instinctively, I started to try to photograph it.

Eastern Pine Elfins are really tiny butterflies.

It wasn’t till I got in a position where the light was not glaring off the gravel that I realized it wasn’t just another Crescent or moth. It was an Elfin! My first Elfin!

Everyone else (who is interested in butterflies) seems to regularly find Elfins. Not me though. I had even tried specifically to find an Eastern Pine Effin here at Fletcher Creek years ago. But today, I hadn’t been thinking about them at all.

Although Eastern Pine Elfins are basically brown, their patterns are quite complicated and when fresh like this they have a lovely oil-on-water sort of shimmer of colour washed over their wings.

And there was not only one, but at least three Elfins! They were all Eastern Pine Elfins.I took photos of the pines growing nearby to remind myself the host for their caterpillars was reasonably close.

Now I just have to find a Hoary Elfin, Henry’s Elfin, Brown Elfin and Bog Elfin. : )

A Curious Blue Butterfly Checks Out my Rollator Walker

Near the parking lot at the end of my walk, a Silvery Blue butterfly decided it wanted to inspect my rollator walker in detail.

It was actually a bit of a wait before it moved off and I could safely continue. Maybe it was halting me to let this Tent Caterpillar cross the trail to safety.

Can You Walk at Fletcher Creek Ecological Preserve in Puslinch Ontario with a Rollator Walker?

I wasn’t sure if I would be able to visit the preserve because I knew I couldn’t walk more than 10 metres without sitting down and in fact might only be able to walk 2 or 3. So I took my Mom’s rollator walker and I started from the main parking lot.

I’m glad I had brought coins for the parking ticket machine because several other people who arrived while I was nearby could not get the system to read their credit and debit cards due to a weak signal. (I’m not sure that a park without even a portapotty is justified charging $8 for unpaved potholed parking but that’s another issue.)

I knew I could not take the interesting side trails in the park because they are just bare dirt and grass paths. However the main trail to the quarry is usually wide enough for a pickup truck and most of it has either gravel, grit or sand covering it.

During the walk I discovered you could not safely do this trail if you relied on the rollator for stability when walking. (I only need it as a portable chair to keep my ACL injury from causing my muscles to go into painful spasm.) There are places that large gravel is laid down so thickly the rollator wheels get trapped. There are also places where the trail has a steep slope from one side to the other which causes the rollator to slide sideways not roll forward. In other words, there were a few places where I had to pick up the rollator and carry it forward. Also when you reach the part where you can see the limestone near the quarry and there is a small boardwalk over a pond, you are not on a trail at all. It is flat shelves of limestone which the walker cannot roll over. Plus there is a steep short hill down to that level. That said, for those who can walk short distances independently but who need to take frequent seated rest breaks, the rollator did work to get nearly to the quarry and back.

And I was so very pleased I tried. I saw some wonderful wildflowers and enjoyed the butterflies, dragonflies, birds and bees. I had been hoping and half-planning to visit Rondeau and Pinery Provincial Parks this spring and possibly the Bruce. While Fletcher Creek doesn’t have as many rarities as those spots, it has a lot of interesting species and I found my visit very rewarding.

Related Reading

• Flowers at the end of May at Fletcher Creek Ecological Preserve
• A Prothonotary Warbler Pops Up Unexpectedly In Flamborough