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