Wings in the wild: tracking the mottled duskywings return

Posted onJuly 23, 2025byOwen Tapia Daly|Mottled Duskywing Butterfly, Native Pollinator Initiative, News and EventsPhoto: J. Linton

What is WPC doing for the mottled duskywing butterfly in Ontario? WPC is an active member of the Ontario Butterfly Species at Risk Recovery Team, a collaborative, multi-disciplinary group which has been leading monitoring, habitat restoration, conservation, and research activities for mottled duskywing since 2017.

The smell of wild bergamot mixes with the warm morning air as we walk toward our first survey site of the day, with one mission in mind: to continue the introduction of mottled duskywings in Norfolk County.

This is the second summer of the mottled duskywing re-integration project in Norfolk, but it’s the first pivotal year for re-sight surveys. As crew members, we’re tasked with releasing an ambitious 800 adult butterflies this season (each one carefully marked before released, allowing us to determine which butterflies are part of this year’s release) then tracking and re-sighting them along mapped trails in the dynamic oak savanna habitats across four release sites. The goal? To monitor the early stages of this emerging population and understand how these butterflies are adapting to their restored environments.

A male mottled duskywing butterfly is marked and ready to be released at the Butterfly Block 5 location! Marking our butterflies allows us to know where they were released, their sex, and that we released an individual this field season. (Photo: O. Tapia Daly).

This summer also brings a brand-new release location into the mix! Conveniently named the “Stead Site” (a nod to Ken Stead and the Land Trust for use of the land), this is the first time adult mottled duskywings will be calling this place home.

Each of our field sites, including the new Stead Site, has its own unique feel, but all of them share one thing in common: a reliance on New Jersey tea, the host plant essential to mottled duskywing survival. From the endless tall grass fields and carpets of purple lupine in Butterfly Blocks 1 and 5, to the milkweeds sprouting around the dramatic sand dunes at the Manestar location in the St. Williams Forest, and finally to the cozy forest trail that leads to the ‘mother patch’ of New Jersey tea at the Stead Site, a patch so large, we literally have to walk right through it!

Purple lupine growing at butterfly blocks amongst the tall grass fields (Photo: O. Tapia Daly).

The impressive Oak Savanna allows for some great dune hiking at Manestar (Photo: O. Tapia Daly).

Some of the biggest highlights so far this field season include:

Watching our first pupae eclose into adults before releasing them into the wild
Witnessing a surprise mating pair between one of our freshly released butterflies and a second generation individual from the prior year’s releases
Tracking the journey of a tiny, marked female who traveled so far she was found almost 500m from where she was released
And connecting with butterfly lovers and nature enthusiasts along our trails, including some large, interactive public releases with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and Land Trust groups who’ve been incredibly supportive of our efforts.

Owen Tapia Daly

Mottled Duskywing Field Assistant for the Norfolk Reintroduction

Owen joined WPC in 2025 s a Field Assistant for the Mottled Duskywing Recovery Project in Norfolk County, aiding in population sampling surveys, and documenting the releases of captive-reared mottled duskywings in Oak Savanna habitats. Graduating from the University of Guelph with a degree in Wildlife Biology and Conservation, Owen has worked on past research projects such as the effects of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal fungi networks on plant communities, as well as the abundance and diversity of bats on Manitoulin Island.