Our Chapter’s Goal 
To promote the enjoyment and conservation of free-flying butterflies.   
 We do this through five primary activities:
1)  Outdoor Field Trips:  We have monthly field trips from March through November that are focused on finding special butterflies of our region.  But although the butterflies are the reason for picking the field trip site, all of our field trips are really outdoor nature appreciation trips.  The participants will be constantly stopping to look at or take photographs of the scenery, fungi, spider webs, flowers, other insects, reptiles, birds, or other natural wonders that we may encounter in addition to butterflies.

2)  Educational Programs:  We hold or provide programs on butterfly biology, identification, gardening, or conservation that are both informative and entertaining.  The program audience can be the general public, garden clubs, nurseries, students, organizations, or agencies.

3)  Annual Butterfly Counts:  Our Chapter plays a critical role in conducting four annual butterfly counts in our region in the Apalachicola River Wildlife and Environmental Area, the Big Bend Wildlife Management Area, Florida Caverns State Park, and in Tallahassee itself.  These annual counts are combined with hundreds of other butterfly counts across the country to provide long-term butterfly data over a wide geographic area to help monitor the overall health of butterfly populations.

4)  Rare Species Monitoring:  The northern Florida / southern Georgia area has several butterfly species that are of state-wide or federal conservation concern.  Our Chapter members help inventory and monitor these species as well as any proposed activities that may negatively impact the populations of these rare butterflies and work with the appropriate agencies to ensure the long-term survival of these butterfly populations in our local area.

5)  Events and Festivals:  We participate in and have displays at local events and festivals.  Examples of past events include Bay Day at the St. Joseph Bay State Buffer Preserve, Earth Day at Florida Caverns State Park, the annual Monarch Festival at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, and the Wakulla Wildlife Festival at Wakulla Springs State Park.



 PictureHairstreak Chapter Annual Meeting July 2015
Join Us
If the Hairstreak Chapter goal and activities are ones that you may enjoy and would like to participate in, or you may wish to receive our monthly newsletter, please join NABA. 
                         
You can also come to one of our events or field trips listed in our Annual Event Calendar.  All of our programs and field trips are free and open to the public.

What is a Hairstreak?
Hairstreaks are a group of butterflies in the family Lycaenidae.  Most of the ones in the U.S. are small, with a wingspan of about an inch.  Their legs and antennae have alternating black and white rings and most have tail-like “hairs” on the back of the hindwings, from which they derive their common name.   The Tallahassee Chapter of NABA adopted the hairstreak as their emblem when a Great Purple Hairstreak landed on one of our charter members up at Birdsong Nature Center in Georgia when we were trying to choose a butterfly to be our emblem.