Dougan Creek and Lorquin's Admiral

     Sandra and I feel really lucky that our son and his lovely wife enticed us into a relationship with Dougan Falls.  It is relatively close to Vancouver and it is an idyllic spot replete with an extraordinarily pretty waterfall.  Combined with a variety of host plants, this area is also a good habitat for a variety of butterflies. 

     On our first three visits we concentrated on the road that leads out of the car park and up the Washougal.  Even in August this upper portion of the Washougal had enough water to service the falls and provide a rushing stream.  We arrived mid-week a little before 10 AM, it was overcast and the the car, smart fellow that it is, informed us that the outside temperature was a cool but comfortable 60 degrees.  From the falls it is 14 miles to actual headwaters of the Washougal. If one is persistent, he can drive an additional ten miles before the road stops, leaving the last few miles of the dwindling river to those afoot. 

    We have never made it further than four miles from the car park and it was at that spot that we turned around. We stopped halfway between Bender Falls and Naked Falls at a spot where we have seen cars parked in the past.  

   The gravel road up the Washougal is notable for lots of signs telling you exactly what pass you need to park in a given spot or, more commonly, that you are not permitted to park at all.  Why this should be so, what sort of mischief has occurred, is a mystery.  However, it is my current opinion that there is no constabulary authorized to ticket your car, but that some land owner is in cahoots with a towing company and you are in jeopardy of being towed only if you are away from your vehicle for hours, like if you are camping overnight.  

Pyralidae moth, Naked Falls, August 2021

    We parked next to an SUV that bore a printout providing permission to park for two days at a cost of $16.32.  This is the fee, apparently, if you are determined not to be a scoff law.  Obviously you need to apply for and pay the fee somewhere in the vicinity of a computer printer.  

    Parked for a short stay, I got out and walked down the trail in the direction of the stream.  Somewhat to my surprise, about fifty feet down the trail I spotted a young woman bearing an armload of camping gear coming in my direction.  We said hello and I got out of her way.  She warned me that there was a dog further down the trail that would bark but was otherwise friendly.  By which I assume she meant it was relatively unlikely to bite.  And this, to quote the bard, "is a consummation devoutly to be wished."

   Having disposed of her sleeping bag, maybe even her tent, she was on her way back to camp when I asked her if she had seen an butterflies.  She allowed that she had seen none there but the previous day on a nearby fork leading uphill, they had seen some orange and black butterflies.  A few steps later, she found a tiny white butterfly and left me to my photographic efforts.

The Pyralidae moth shows a little leg.

    Two days earlier, my lovely wife and I had attended a seminar at Best Buy, where a photo salesman, who allowed that he was a good amateur photographer, showed me their SLRs and confirmed that if I wanted to go that route for taking pictures of butterflies, I was going to be into it for more than a  thousand quid. Further, this expensive batch of electronic wizardry might not be up to fierce rainstorm. 

   We wandered over to the point and shoots and I probed him to discover just how he might get the most out of one of these, which although fifteen years younger, approximates the camera we have been using this summer. 

   Following the symposium I went home and made kissy face with my aging Lumix.  As i approched this miniscule lepidopteran, I knew this was the moment that we would take the new strategy into battle.  

    Here we had a very small insect with a wing span about a centimeter or so.  What you see are my best results, massaged by the photo processor.  Even after a couple glasses of cheap chardonnay I could not find his pallid visage in my field guides.  Daniel Rubinoff to the Rescue tells us that this is a moth of the family Pyralidae.  He was unable to put a species name on it (apparently it is a big genus) but allowed that, being a moth, it would not be in any butterfly book.  This also explains why, no matter how hard you look, you won't see any antennae.

Dougan Creek, August 2021

    Soon enough we were back to the falls, where we decided to drive out the other way, past the entrance to Dougan Falls Campground.  We followed this well graded gravel road uphill for about two miles, at which point it makes a button hook turn to the left and continues uphill.  For this first two miles the road hugs Dougan Creek.  While much smaller than the Washougal, we had glimpses of a pleasant little stream cascading over and around boulders, with forest extending to the winter banks on each side.  Most notably, this must all be state or federal land, for there is not a single sign instructing you to buy a permit to park or to avoid trespassing all together.   

 At the sharp turn, a family had pitched their tent on the edge of the road.  With the whole forest to choose from, this struck me as an odd choice for a camp site. I suppose the road is not heavily used but Google maps tells us that it continues uphill for several miles and connects to other roads in the forest.

   We did not continue up hill, but chose that point to turn around.  As we did so, a Lorquin's Admiral flew right in front of us and into the forest beside the creek. We stopped to check it out, but he was long gone.  And so we drove back down half a mile or so.  What had been a cool, overcast day was getting sunnier by the minute.  I had spied a turn out with good access to the creek, where we parked in the shade, put the windows down and enjoyed the quiet forest and the babbling creek as we had an early lunch. 

Lorquin's Admiral "Wings Up"  Resting Position

  After lunch I descended a gentle twenty feet to the creek bed.  The boulder strewn bed at this point spanned at least 100 feet.  One must assume that Dougan Creek fills this expanse with rushing water in the spring.  This being late August, one could just about hop from boulder to boulder and thus cross the creek if she were so disposed.  It was so verdant and peaceful, the merry creek swirling gently from pool to pool.  I watched a few water boatmen plying their trade in one of the pools of clear mountain water and then returned to the car, coaxing Sandra down into this bit of paradise.  

    We spent about half an our exploring pools, stepping from rock to rock.  And also seeing some butterflies.  A small butterfly was working the branches of an alder on the far bank; even with the binoculars I could not identify him. In a bit an sulfur clouded butterfly passed close by and then fluttered his way upstream.  This butterfly is much larger than other yellowish gray butterflies found in our area and so it can be identified on the wing.  

   And then there were the Lorquin's Admirals.  My first good shot involved a butterfly with a chip out of his wing.  He sat patiently in the moss on a boulder, his wings up in resting position.  I was able to get close and get this nice shot of the ventral surface of this complex insect.

Lorquin's Admiral, Dougan Creek August 2021

    The second shot was even better.  An admiral flew in and settled on a pair of men's socks that some thoughtless person had left in the  creek bed.  Although the idea of littering in paradise is an anathema to me, it turns out that such a decaying bit of underwear may hold significant attraction for these chemically sensitive insects.  When I showed the picture to Daniel Rubinoff he replied that butterflies are frequently found on "stinky stuff.".  I still deplore the littering, but I love these pictures.  

    The waterfall at Dougan Falls is nice, but I can hardly wait to take the journey back up to Dougan Creek.  Maybe next time we'll take a grandchild.  What a fantastic place to take some grandparent pictures.

jeff

 

    Our mentor, Daniel Rubinoff has just published a book.  He was a bit sheepish about telling me about it, but why should he be?  Every time I corresponded with Jack Randall about a tropical reef fish sighting he was kind enough to write back, but always included information on one of his many publications that should be added to my library. So here is the name of Daniel's book and a link to

purchase from Amazon.

Field Guide to California Insects

 https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-California-Insects-Natural/dp/0520288742/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=california+insects&qid=1630024161&sr=8-1

Birds and Butterflies at Picture Lake or Mount Baker with Jackie

         It was a sunny afternoon at Picture Lake and two young Mexican girls dressed as fairies, fleecy blue gowns, flamboyant wings, bearing magic wands, had passed by me on the trail.  We had come to Mount Baker with our friend Jackie to look for birds and butterflies.   The fairies, who were associated with a young couple getting wedding pictures, were an unexpected benefit. 

Picture Lake, Mount Baker  August 2021

         We had left LaConner in the late morning and by the time we had completed the perilous ascent to Picture Lake it was early afternoon.  The lake, with its famous reflection, is near the Mount Baker ski area at 6000 feet, just below the timberline.  It was our hope that searching this alpine habitat in August would yield wildfowers and butterflies. There were lots of wildflowers and so, even though we weren't seeing butterflies right away ,we were hopeful.  

       As we stood, taking pictures of the lake a flock of small birds settled on the water about 50 yards away.  When we got a look through the binoculars I was pleased to find that we had a small flock of Wilson's Phalaropes.

Gray Jay, Mount Baker, North Cascades Washington. Ausust 2021

   Although phalaropes are closely related to shorebirds, like turnstones and tattlers, they are definitely birds of the water..  Two of the three species of phalaropes are primarily pelagic;  the red necked phalarope is occasionally seen off the coast of western North America.

   These were Wilson's phalaropes, which live inland, breed in the lakes of the northwest and migrate to South America for the winter.  to some extent they have a preference for salt lakes, like the one found in Utah and Mono Lake in California.  In this respect, one might say, they are peculiar birds inhabiting an unusual environment.

   All three species of phalaropes feed in a singular manner.  They spin around in the water, stirring it with their webbed toes, and then pluck small tidbits from the surface.

Jackie and Sandra are very impressed with the phalaropes.

    The sex lives of phalaropes is as unusual as its feeding.  They engage in sex role reversal, with females being larger and more colorful than the males. Females lay eggs then leave the male to hatch them and rear the chicks.  Ornithologists tell us that females may engage in polyandry, taking more than one male for the purposes of breeding...the female equivalent of a harem.  In the animal world, this is quite unusual.It also occurs in marmosets, bandicoots, jacanas and honey bees...a select and diverse group to be sure.

   Suffice it to say, the small gray phalaropes, out in the middle of the lake, were of only passing interest to the non-birders.  Luckily at about this moment Jackie spotted a family of Gray jays that had occupied the trees right where we were standing.  These silent denizens of the high country were so close that anyone would have enjoyed that..

Ruddy Copper Butterfly pair  Mount Baker August 2021

    All of a sudden it was time for some butterflies.  Jackie had the sharp eyes and spotted a pair of small butterflies in the ground cover near the lake.  The male was a handsome rufous with gray and black wing lining,and was easily identified as a ruddy copper butterfly.  The map in our butterfly book put the range for this butterfly a little further east.  However, unlike some butterflies, this was a pretty easy identification.  Here I am showing you a pair of Ruddy Coppers in the wildflowers near Picture Lake.  The ventral surfaces of the male and female are identical.

     We drove around the ski resort without finding another bunch of wildflowers full of butterflies.  Before heading home, I asked our hostess to stop by a chalet near the lake.  On the slope near the car park three was a field of wildflowers, in which were many Ruddy Coppers.  Suddenly Sandra saw an orange and black butterfly land on a rock ten feet from where we stood. 

Satyr Anglewing, Mount Baker, Wa.  August  2021

    I snuck up on it and nabbed two quick pictures before it flew, in a flurry of orange and black, back into the middle of the weedy field.  I circled the field and even plunged into it without finding another.  There were many ruddy coppers which were now like dirt birds.  Being new to the sport, I don't know if lepidopterists call them dirt butterflies, or something equally derogatory.

    Both Sandra and I had a pretty good sight of eye look at this butterfly.  Here I am showing you the best of my two pictures, nursed to the best possible condition.  Obviously, this is what the butterfly guys call an anglewing, which comprises the tortoiseshells and commas.  I have no idea where they got the name tortoiseshell.  But now, in the process of striving for an identification,  we learned where the name comma came from.  If you look carefully you will see a tiny white slash on the back wing of our butterfly.   Its not unlike a Nike swoosh, although there is no evidence that Phil Knight is a lepidopterist.  You might also think it looks like the smile on the Cheshire Cat. 

Satyr Anglewing (nee comma)  photo iNaturalist

    In preparation for my butterfly exhibits I had produced several paper mache Green Commas and can confidently state that none of them bore this tiny white slash.  I mean, Who knew?  At least three of my friends and relatives are proudly displaying their jeff Hill originals in their home or office.  And I am willing to bet that not a one of them is sitting their looking at their statuette and saying,  "Jeff really screwed up when he left out the comma."

    In any event, there are several of these butterflies and some are called commas, which is apparently what the swoosh looks like to someone in the naming business.  Apparently this tiny white comma is slightly different in each species of this group.  With this new found knowledge and my inferior picture we set about to identify the comma.  I am providing you with first rate pictures of the two finalists.

Compton's Tortoiseshell

     The species that we had been encouraged to expect at this altitude and season was the Satyr Anglewing, sometimes called the Satyr Comma.  Our hero, Jeffrey Pippen, found them in profusion in a meadow near Paradise on Mount Rainier in August a few years back.  Pyle, in his butterfly book, asks us to pay special attention to the tiny hooks at each end of the comma in this species.  Subtle, no?

    When I went through Pyle's butterfly book,with its excellent pictures, amps and field characteristics,  along with that  complete source of zoologic pictures,  Google Images, I thought Compton's Tortoiseshell was also a good candidate.  Initially I associated this name with Compton, California, a suburb of Los Angeles renowned for its production of fierce, fleet footballers.  Compton might well be known as the Cradle of Cornebacks.  In fact,  just about the time that Professor Pippen was ogling his anglewings on Mount Rainier, a quarterback from Compton was leading the Huskies down by the Montlake Cut.  To bring this thing full circle, you can see Mount Rainier from the east end of the student section in Husky Stadium.  Go Dogs!

 Check out the swoosh: a Green Comma by JP in the mountains of Montana

    So tortoiseshell or anglewing, we made our way back down the hill to  Chez Jackie, where we dined sumptously on butterfly shrimp and dreamed of a cloud of butterflies spelling out "Go Huskies" in a cloudless northwest sky.  May all your dreams be as sweet as that.

jeff

The Butterflies of Bend

        The air was only a little smoky as we crossed the small wooden bridge in the Metolius Preserve.  The new normal is forest fires in the west, so if you want to be out in the woods in August, you might as well get used to the smoke. In a way, this is a bit like the old normal, which was something like,"if

Western Meadow Fritillary  Boloria epithore  Photo SKG

you want to go fishing in Oregon in March, you better get used to the rain"  The difference being that the rain, in general, doesn't destroy tracts of forest the size of Rhode Island.   Not only that, but people in North Dakota (now blanketed in smoke from western forest fires) have no idea if it is raining in Oregon.  

      The tangy air aside, we had yet to see any butterflies.  Our two correspondents, ladies affiliated with the Audubon Society of Central Oregon which is headquartered in Bend, had told us that this spot, about ten miles from Camp Sherman, was the best place to see those colorful creatures.  Although I had convinced myself that butterflies would fly later in the slightly higher altitude near the summit of the Cascades, if was now apparent that June would have been better than early August. 

Find the Wood Nymph and win a prize.

    Anyway, here we were in the ponderosa pine forest, a spot that didn't look any different than any other spot in this large area west of Sisters: park like pine forest with the occasional stream where the pines give way to willows and such.   It was only another fifty feet from the bridge which crossed one of these small streams, that we had our first reward.  In a flash of bright orange, we had a male Great Spangled Fritillary.  The best Sandra and I could do was chase it, finally getting a look from a small distance.
 

    How could we be so sure that it was a Great Spangled Fritillary (which is a mouthful under the best of circumstances)?  Well, the secretary at the ASCO was kind enough to provide me with two excellent correspondents, Amanda Eggerston and Sue Anderson.  I had suspected that there were butterfly watchers who had elevated the sport to the level of the finest twitchers, a term hardcore bird watchers now apply to the most enthusiastic of their number.  Sue, who currently lives in Eugene, had written back first. She gave me the Metolius Preserve and a site in the Ochocos, which is outside Prineville. Finally she suggested Tumalo Falls, which as we shall see, is devilishly close to Bend.  

Zerene Fritallary, Metolius Preserve  August 2021

    Amanda wrote back a few days later.  She is the Stewardship Director for the Deschutes Land Trust (la de da) which administers the Metolius Preserve.  Initially I thought she might be responding in that official capacity.  But, no!  she is twicher of the Lepidopteran order.  She revealed that she and Sue had collaborated on a survey of the very spot we were butterflying (and yes, that is actually a word in common use) and provided an annotated list of the butterflies to be seen there, including host plants, nectaring plants and seasonal distribution.  Does this lady twitch or what?

   Having studied The List against Butterflies of the Pacific Northwest by Robert Pyle, we had a pretty
good idea what we might see.  As you can see, when prodded into action, I , too, can still twitch.  Pyle describes the Greater Spangled Fritillary as larger than other fritillaries in the area, with the male boasting a vibrant citrus orange.  All this fit our beast to a tee, even if we couldn't get close enough to take a picture. 

    By this time we had entered a more open, meadow-like habitat. Along the edges we began seeing dark butterflies which landed on trees and stumps.  These were Common Wood Nymphs and on a couple occasions permitted close enough approach for photography.  Not close enough, as it turned out, to produce a useable picture, but close enough for good sight of eye identification.  I'm including the best of our lot, taken by Sandra with her phone.  Her phone has a pretty good camera, but butterfly photography is not for the weak of heart or the inadequately equipped.  Even as this blog goes to press we are talking with Q back at MI 6 in hopes of getting a camera that is up to the task. 

    There were three wood nymphs on the list, differentiated by the size of the spots on their wings.  The ones we saw here were all the common.  

Zerene Fritillary, Metolius Preserve

     We did see one small orange butterfly resting in the dirt.  Sandra and her phone got the best picture of this little guy, which turned out to be the Western Meadow Fritillary.  This is one of the lesser fritillaries of the genus Boloria.  After our trip I sent some questions back to my mentor Daniel Rubinoff at UH Manoa.  He confirmed that the primary difference between the Lesser Frits (Boloria) and the Greater Frits (Speyeria) is size.  Greater vs lesser...makes sense.

    On our walk back we finally encountered a larger fritillary butterfly nectaring on a thistle adjacent to the trail.  this is what we had been waiting for and we were able to nab several serviceable pictures of a Zerene Fritillary Butterfly.  

    Leaving the Metolius Preserve we made the short drive to Camp Sherman and then out to the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery.  It was unbearably hot so we ate our lunch in the air conditioned car.  While dining sumptuously on ham sandwiches and oatmeal cookies we were treated to a Lorquin's Admral, which floated by the outside, apparently oblivious to the heat.  It was a great look and induced us to get out and hike along the banks of the rushing Metolius, but no more butterflies were found.

Lorquin's Admiral,   Jeff Pippen

   After spending the night in Sisters, a picturesque old cow town that has now been redone to accommodate wealthy yuppies and a legion of tourists, we headed over to Bend.  We skirted the edge of town and headed up to Mount Bachelor. where the ski slopes were shrouded in smoke and virtually devoid of snow. The ski resort from Hell.  Following our instructions,  we descended to Sparks Lake.  Although there is a lake back there somewhere, we had been directed to a huge meadow right by the highway.   The meadow might have been full of butterflies in June, but by August it was dry and the wildflowers were spent.   

       From where we parked, facing the meadow, we were able to observe a  handsome kestrel who perched on a lone stump and made forays over the meadow, presumably in search of small rodents and large insects.   We strolled around the dry meadow for a bit seeing nothing of interest.

   Although Sue Anderson had not suggested this, we pulled into the Sparks lake camping area, at the northern edge of the meadow,  Here we found what bird watchers are trained to look for...a small stream heading into dry country, accompanied by a few lodgepole pines and willows.  A glance into the tops of the pine trees revealed a few Red Crossbills.  I've seen this odd bird less than a dozen times in my half century of bird watching, so this was quite a treat for both myself and Ms. Gray. In the lower branches by the stream we spotted an empidonax flycatcher and some yellow rumped warblers.  

Wizard Falls, Those willows are prime Lorquin's habitat.

   We wandered along the stream, hoping to catch butterflies along the muddy edge.  This activity, sometimes called puddling, allows the butterfly to suck up nutrients.  We have yet to witness this phenomenon.  Nor have we seen butterflies dining on a pile of moist manure.  I don't know what the lepidopterists call that... I'm sure you can come up with your own name.  Over the meadow we got a very good look at a single white butterfly.  The book revealed this to be a Spring White Butterfly, Pontia sysimbril  Boisduval 1852.  

    Before leaving the area around Mt, Bachelor, we stopped in at Todd Lake.  This is a fairly large lake close to Bachelor, probably 500 vertical feet higher than Sparks Lake.  There is a road circling the lake and we got Amanda Eggerston to say that it might be a good spot, although she had not butterflied it.  What the map didn't show was the road leading into the lake was atrocious.  We drove in for a mile or so before deciding that we were not going to sacrifice the Mazda 3 for a potential butterfly.  

   After we turned around we started seeing butterflies and we made a couple stops and had some success.  At one juncture a Lorquin's Admiral floated over the windshield and slowly by Sandra's window.  This would not be the last of this amazingly beautiful butterfly that we would see.  And he comes with a story.  Lorquin was French and a friend, after a fashion of Messr. Boisduval.  As you have seen from the Spring White, Boisduval was identifying insects at the right time and was the first to name many western butterflies.  But he never went to western North America.  Rather, he sat in his office in Paris and received packages of butterflies from his friend Mssr Lorquin who had decamped to northern California where he was prospecting for gold.  This is reminiscent of Carl Linnaeus who took credit for all the fish discoveries made by his sometimes friend Peter Artedi.  At least Messr. Lorquin got a really nice butterfly named for him.  Parenthetically, I suppose it is more likely that Lorquin saw his admiral sucking up horse poop as opposed to sitting on a gold nugget, but that information is lost to history.

Spring White Butterfly

    We also got a very nice look at a hydaspe fritillary ( greater frit) and a Western Meadow Fritillary, the lesser frit you saw earlier.   Although we got good looks, we were unable to get good pictures.

    After we checked into the Holiday Inn Express in Bend and rejuvenated, we headed out to the last recommended spot, Tumalo Falls and the creek of the same name.  It was hard to tell from the map, but Tumalo Falls is only about ten miles, mostly on a very good road, outside the newer, tonier side of Bend, where there are parks along the river, many traffic circles and gorgeous homes.  If you are rich, you very well might want to live there.

    On the way out to the falls, we saw lots of Pine white butterflies crossing the road, which wound through a gorgeous pine forest.   Sue Anderson told us to drive over the bridge and look for meadows.full of clover.   Getting over the bridge was easy.  On the far side we switched to well graded gravel for the last few miles.  However, there were no meadows and before we knew it we had made it to the waterfall.  Its a pretty nice waterfall and the spot from which you ogle the falls is only about fifty feet from where you park your car.  That car park was supposed to be full of butterflies, but it was mostly full of tourists.  On the drive back we stopped at a pull out and walked down to the stream.

Tumalo Falls    Photo SKG

    This was a very hot afternoon , but by the stream it was a little cooler.  I found a bit of clover, but none of the small blue butterflies that Sue had promised.  We did have another close pass of a Lorquin's Admiral, flashing those fancy red wing tips.  By the stream I spotted a wood nymph, which I trailed for about fifty feet while trying not to step in the babbling brook.  Eventually I got my look and was rewarded with a Dark Wood Nymph.  the Common WN has two equal eyespots on the front wing while the dark has one big one and one small one. In one respect it seems trivial, but in another if makes things rather straight forward, which is a good thing when you're trying to tell one bug from the next by looking at pictures in a book.

 jeff