On the Trail of the Mylitta Crescent

     Two weeks ago we published our most recent edition, regaling you with a day spent with butterflies on the Upper Washougal.  Little did we know that even as we published we were being over taken by new information that would make said blog, at the minimum, inaccurate. 

Pale Tiger Swallowtail, Dougan Falls, May 2024

    Just before completing the blog my lovely wife and I had taken what we thought to be a Western Meadow Fritillary out front for a photo op. The WMF is a common summer butterfly.   Small and orange, we can reasonably expect to see this butterfly all summer throughout our area.  

   Out front we placed the chilled insect on a  rhododendron leaf and attempted to take its picture.  However, the little fella squirmed, fell into the rhody.  Before Sandra, who is the team insect handler, could retrieve the tiny insect, it had warmed sufficiently and taken wing.  We bid it a Via Con Dios as it ascended to the heavens.  

   At this point it wasn't much of a loss.  We hadn't got the picture we dreamed of, but we already had many pictures of the Western Meadow Frit.  We put the blog to bed and waited for the accolades to roll in.  

   Almost immediately, before we could bask in the glow of any accolades, we received an email from Yoda. 

    I had emailed our pictures to Caitlin LaBar and it had taken her two days to get back to us.  And this is what she said, "Based on size, I'm sure that what you saw were Western Meadow Frits, but on the same day in Cowlitz County I saw lots of Mylitta Crescents."

The pale swallowtail shows off his proboscis.

    Just a week or two earlier, we had been helping Bob Hillis identify a Pale Crescent (not that he really needs any help) that he saw in Utah.  And I was envious.  Would we ever see a crescent?  I had my doubts.    And now here was Ms LaBar, employing a coy subtle turn of phrase that I was unaware she possessed.  In a very sweet way she was suggesting that we look at our pictures again and maybe change our identification. 

    She never called me a moron, but it might have been appropriate. 

   When we consulted Caitlin's book and re-examined our several mediocre pictures of the tiny butterfly, we had to conclude that we had seen Mylitta Crescent.  Not realizing what we had, I had been satisfied with a poor effort in the field,  had already deleted some of those mediocre pictures and permitted our prize specimen to escape!  

    This was not strong work.  We might never see this butterfly again! I should have written another blog heaped with retractions, but my shame and hubris won out, and we swept our faux pas under the rug.

Mylitta Crescent male, May 2024

    However, Sandra and I didn't exactly give up.  We visited the scene of the crime, four miles up stream from Dougan Falls, a week later.  We saw no frits or crescents on that rare sunny noon, but I managed to net a lone Pale Tiger Swallowtail.  We have seen this species in Central Oregon and the Columbia Gorge, but never on the Washougal.  And we got the nice picture you see here of the team insect handler gently displaying our catch. As an aside, her dexterity enables us to document many a potential victim and grant them a reprieve.  Kudos to sweetie. 

    What then ensued was a week of cold rainy weather. Cancelled Little League games became the norm and we shuttled our portable heater from one room to the other.  Butterflies need not apply.

    Finally, yesterday the sun came out.  Weakly, but with enough force to kindle the embers in our lepidopterous hearts.  And so, after throwing together some sandwiches, cookies and apple slices, we made the pilgrimage to the Upper Washougal.  It was cool when we arrived and puddles graced the small, weedy car park.  The recent rain had the merit of keeping the dust down on the gravel road, but rain puddles are generally not a harbinger of good butterfly watching.  "Puddle Parties" is more of an expression as opposed to the desirability of actual mud puddles..  We waited for a while, drove up to Timber Creek, consumed our humble repast and, by the time we returned to our weedy car park, it was a bit after noon and the sun was out for real.

Mylitta Crescent, Upper Washougal May 2024

    It took a few minutes of strolling back and forth with our nets, looking like a pair of escapees from the Camas Home for the Bewildered, before we saw the first small orange butterflies. Two small butterlies fluttered amid the emerging fiddlenecks before ascending in a pas de deux to the alder tree tops.  But more followed.  One lit on a branch of dead cedar and stayed for a photo.  He subsequently fell to my sweetie's net.  From the pictures and observation of our prize, now fluttering in the vegetable bag (to which  we transfer our butterflies for transport) this was easily identified as a male Mylitta Crescent.

   We soon captured another small orange butterfly that seemed to have more red tone and less dark wing margin. With this tiny fellow happily housed in his own vegetable bag, the four of us made the 45 minute journey back to the ranch for  a well deserved rest.  

     This butterfly catching can be exhausting!

Western Meadow Fritillary, Upper Washougal May 2024

    The butterflies spent a pleasant night in the kitchen refrigerator, which Sandra (the ringmaster in our little circus) has concluded is colder than the one in the garage, rendering our performers a bit more tractable. 

    Acutely aware of our previous failure, Igor and I set up a laboratory in the spare bedroom...large brown towel, Green paper backdrop and some sticks left over from the models we prepared for the upcoming exhibit which is less than a week away.  

   First up was the butterfly we had identified as the male Mylitta Crescent.  Luckily, I took a few pictures of the butterfly in Sandra's hand, where the butterflies seem to feel remarkably at home.  She then transferred the little devil to a small branch, which in the pictures (due to the extreme diminutive size of these butterflies) looks like a log.  We procured a picture on the log, but the one in her hand Turned out to be superior. So that is what you see here..  The butterfly reposes in the wings up position.  and isn't he handsome?  These insects are indeed tiny jewels. 

Mylitta Crescent

    After his photo session, this mylitta became active and flew across the room.  Luckily, he perched on the room side of the Venetian blinds and Sandra was able to capture him by hand (as opposed to resorting to a net, which affords its own brand of comedy) and return him to his genie's bottle (aka the vegetable bag.)

   I must confess that the bag is not as well appointed as the bottle the adorable Barbara Eden called home in her 60s sitcom.   And, to be honest, I would probably prefer to look at pictures of the young Barbara Eden in her genie costume.  However, we don't always get to choose.  

      The butterfly seemed happy enough in his bag.  And he certainly couldn't complain about inadequate AC, especially after the bag was returned to the refrigerator.

   Next came the second small butterfly, which in the field seemed more red than the mylitta.  And look at what we saw in our picture!  No doubt, this was a Western Meadow Fritillary, captured in our weedy car park on the same afternoon in May.  Two weeks earlier, Caitlin had captured two Western Meadow Frits in Cowlitz County ( I guess we already told you that.) so this wasn't a terribly big surprise.  But I was  a little surprised and it's a pretty nice picture of this tiny insect in resting position.

Western Meadow Fritillary

   In due course, he was returned to the ice box

    After a suitable interval, we decided to see what could be accomplished outside.  In large part due to Sandra's expert handling, we got the butterflies situated, each on their own rhododendron leaf.  Though the air temperature was in the high fifties, the morning sun was shining and both butterflies positioned themselves in such a way that they could bask most effectively in the solar rays.  This gave us the opportunity to take these last two pictures.
  

    

     As our photo session wore down, Sandra positioned the Western Meadow Frit in a rhododendron blossom.  I'm going to send the resulting picture to Caitlin as a belated Mother's Day present.  She is, after all, the mother of the butterflies.  On the other hand, if one considers the large number of "children" residing for eternity in her museum, in the maternal affection category she may not be quite on a par with June Cleaver.

jeff

Happy Mother's Day from the Upper Washougal!

The Painted Ladies Return to SW Washington

Timber Creek burbles down to the Washougal

      Yesterday was Mother's Day and Sandra declared that she would like to go butterfly watching on the Upper Washougal.  We hadn't been there for a couple weeks and hoped that some new butterflies would be making an appearance.  It had been sunny here, after a week of cold rain, and the land was warming up.  By the time we made it above Dougan Falls it was almost 10 o'clock and a pleasant 65 degrees.

     At first we saw only Echo Azures, those very small blue butterflies.  We moved further up to our highest favorite spot and waited for half an hour.  Seeing a few whites, but not able to get close enough for a good look.  At this season Timber Creek burbles under a bridge, making for a very pleasant riparian experience.  Later in the season we will hopefully see more butterflies here.  The creek bed will still be lush and green, but no water will burble under the bridge.

    Sandra ate her sandwich as we motored back down to our first spot, which is a turnout often used for camping just above the Washougal.  It was 11 AM when we arrived and as we hopped out I declared that it was prime time.  And indeed it was.

A WMF perches on a dandelion

    There were at least a dozen Western Meadow Fritilaries in the weedy car park.  I'm always surprised by how small these Boloria frits are; this group was just a bit bigger than the azure 1echos, which are small even by the standard of blue butterflies.  As we watched the WMFs, we couldn't help noting that there were around ten slightly larger, paler butterflies mixed in.  They were perhaps 25% bigger that the frits.  

   Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking.  In this instance, I nabbed a single photo with the camera, which takes pretty good pictures of small animals at twenty feet, but I did not attempt to stalk one of the paler butterflies for a shot with my cell phone, which takes better pictures if you are able to get within three feet.  

    Two other butterflies were in the car park.  We saw two individuals of a small black and gray butterfly.  Last year I sent Caitlin a picture of this butterfly, hoping it was a metalmark.  This year I know better. It's the Two Banded Checkered Skipper.  This picture was taken with the camera at about ten feet and a good thing it was, as my trusty nimrod, the semi-redoubtable SKG was unable to net the little devil.   

Two banded Checkered Skipper May 2024

 

    We saw one other lep, a tiny black job much smaller that the the echo.  It had a few teensy white spots.  We'll see of Caitlin can identify it from the description, as it, too avoided Sandra's net.

    Eventually the butterflies flew off, as they inevitably do, and we drove around, past the falls and up Dougan Creek to our favorite final spot.  Not much was happening there, so as we consumed the second sandwich and a cookie with M and Ms, we checked out the pictures in the camera.  As we looked, I became convinced that those pale butterflies back by the Washougal were Painted Ladies.  

    We saw Painted Ladies twice last summer.  The first time was in lavender blooming uphill from my son's house in mid July.  The second time was in late August 500 feet below Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood.  In both instances the butterflies we saw and photographed were beautiful animals with crisp vibrant colors.

Painted Lady, Upper Washougal, May 2024

    So what's the deal?   When we got home I referred to Caitlin's book and then, this morning,  to James and Nunnallee.   And this is what I put together:

    As we all know, the Painted Lady is cosmopolitan, being found as a native all over the world.  It is also renowned as a migrant.  In Europe it is known to migrate from Norway to sub-Saharan Africa. Hence, I call it the arctic tern of butterflies.   And because of these propensities, I speculate that ever so long ago it was a pregnant Painted Lady that landed in Hawaii, becoming the distant Vanessa ancestor of  our Kamehameha Butterfly.  

    The painted Lady is well known to the Pacific Northwest, and is more common than the similar endemic\ West Coast Lady.  As in Europe, the Painted Lady solves the over wintering problem by adultmigration.  According to James and Nunnallee, our Painted Ladies winter in Southern California, Arizona and Mexico.  

Painted Lady, Livingston Mountain July 2023

    When spring comes, the adult Painted Ladies migrate back north.  Suffice it to say, this is an arduous journey and when they arrive, they are, in the words of our very own Caitlin LaBar, "tatty."  Until this morning I wasn't sure that was actually a word, but it is in the Oxford English dictionary.  Shabby, worn, and in poor condition.  And that explains the appearance of the Painted Ladies in the car park.  

    For butterflies, and perhaps especially for these butterflies who may not have long to live, time is of the essence.  On arrival they must get busy and begin a new cycle.  Hopefully those males in the car park were finding some sustenance and whatever else they needed to get the next generation on its way.

   As I put this together, I couldn't help forming an analogy with Sandra and me.  Like the Painted Ladies, we are migrants, returning to the PNW in the spring.  And when we first arrive we are unkempt and exhausted...tatty.

Painted Lady with Asters  Mount Hood  August 2023

     After we finished lunch, we watched a few white butterflies fly up and down the road.  Sandra decided that the way to catch one was to position herself in the path of an on coming butterfly, much a like a catcher intercepting the runner attempting to steal home.  As her butterfly approached, she stood her ground, net in hand.  At the last minute, the butterfly veered off and flew down to the creek.  I declared the butterfly out, as it had left the base path.  

     I left Sandra fuming on the road as I, too, went down to the creek where I photographed a tribe of azure echos enjoying a puddle party in a patch of wet moss.  Having completed my task, I ascended the bank to find my sweetie holding the middle of her net in triumph, a Margined White  successfully captured.  

Margined white, May 2024

    Sandra held the butterfly for a picture and then we let it fly away, ending a perfect Mothers Day Butterfly excursion.

jeff

On the Trail of the Indra Swallowtail

To paraphrase René Magritte:  This Is Not an Orangetip.

      When we were attempting to find Sara's Orangetip at Catherine Creek, we saw a couple black butterflies.  I was hoping that these were Indra Swallowtails.  But our butterfly guru said, "No.  Those are Propetius Duskywings, which despite looking brown and russet when lying on the leafy forest floor, look entirely black in flight.    If you wanted to see Indra Swallowtail, she said, you needed to go just a little bit further east, to Klickitat Canyon. 

    In fact, the orangetip is found in Klickitat Canyon as well, and it was only a half hour further.  Obviously I was penny wise and pound foolish when it came to picking a spot up the Columbia River Gorge to look for spring butterflies.  

    By the middle of last week the Indra Swallowtail Butterfly had become the most wanted spring butterfly.  As things conspired, the ISB had a little help from my entomological incompetence.  But we didn't know that yet and so we asked Bagwhan LaBar for her best tips for finding  an Indra Swallowtail in Klickitat Canyon.  Cait's top recommendation was a strip of decommissioned highway three miles up stream from Wahkiacus.  Now you may be asking yourself, as I did, "Where in the F***icus is Wahkiacus?" 

    The answer is:  Drive an hour and a half east of Vancouver on scenic Hwy 14, sometimes known as the roller coaster of  the Pacific Northwest. Just before you get to Lyle, Wa.,  cross the Klickitat and turn left up Hwy 142.  After ten miles you will pass Fish On Rd (more about that later) and in another 5 miles you will come to a string of well used bungalows, anchored by the Canyon Market, that passes for the metropolis of Wahkiacus.  This is not a one gas station town, so you would be advised to arrive with sufficient fuel.  Our destination,  Haul Out Road, is another three miles up stream, just before the 142 crosses the Klickitat.  Again.

Wahkiacus Seep replete with Lomatium

     The state has repurposed roads and right of ways all the way up the Klickitat, making for a very long, river hugging hike, if one is so disposed.  Cait has abbreviated the hiking experience for us butterfly watchers.  Fish On Road rapidly becomes a fine dirt trail.  Haul Out Rd is a fine piece of macadam, still bearing a yellow line down the middle.  On the left are rock walls that were sheared away, yielding seeps that ought to be butterfly magnets.  On the right is the scenic Klickitat River. Half a mile in, there is a gate across the road to deter motor vehicles, and it is a truly delightful place for a riverside walk.  Especially if you like to have the highway to yourself.

    And so, starting about 9:30 on a sunny morning, Sandra and I walked up and down the road looking for butterflies.  A few steps from the gate we happened on a handsome rock wall with growths of Lomatium sprouting from ledges.  Our spiritual adviser tells us that this plant, with its long stemmed light yellow flowers and bushy leaves is the host plant for Indra Swallowtail.  I call the resulting picture Wahkiacus Seep. This may or may not be the name of a character from Great Expectations.

  We saw several Ochre Ringlets, which a week or so earlier we may have mis-identified as a female Sara's Orangetip.  (This represents a faux pas as big as New Jersey)  I showed Cait my picture, that you see above, and you could almost here her laughing as she replied something like," I never dreamed you thought that was an orangetip..."  Sandra inaugurated her new net by catching one of these deceitful hussies.  As I was taking her prize back to the car for some well deserved time in the cooler, my sweetie spotted a Pacific Tree Frog.  She was fascinated by her frog to such an extent that she could not here me exclaiming about a puddle full of swallowtails under the seep.    Fortunately for Sandra they were all Anise Swallowtails, small and lovely but not Indra.

The Anise Swallowtail enjoys the seep puddle

    We enjoyed the river, an Audubon's Warbler.  And the frog, of course.  But we didn't see a plethora of Indra Swallowtails.  We my have seen one flying through the trees, but this was far from the definitive view we longed for.

Columbia Spotted Blue, Klickitat Canyon, May 2024

    And so we drove back through Wahkiacus, and on the guru's advice, turned up Klickitat- Appleton Road.  We ascended about a thousand feet.  Cait had been told Indras hilltop up there.  She had never seen one up on top and, although  you can see Sacramento from the top of that hill, neither did we.

    And so we headed back down to the river and down stream to Fish On Road.   We had done some butterflying late last summer on this fine river-hugging trail and I recalled a single sand bar which I hoped would yield some Indras.

   On the way down the trail I saw a small butterfly that allowed me to approach closely and get the picture you see here.  Despite the picture you see here.   I was, of course, unable to correctly identify it.  Cait tells us that this is a Columbia Spotted Blue, Euphilotes columbiae.   She went on to say that this is a common butterfly in the gorge later this year, but this was the first confirmed sighting for this spring.  I think she was actually a little proud of her incompetent protege. I'll try to not let it go to my head.

A Squadron of Indra Swallowtails, May 2024

  Another two hundred yards down the trail we came to the sand bar.  At the water's edge was a young couple and a large German Shepherd.  The puppy was ankle deep in the river, which must have been a few degrees warmer than those chunks of ice that you put in your bourbon and branch at the day's end.  And around their feet on the moist sand there were butterflies.  Lots of them.  Big ones and little ones, flopping this way and that.

      I put on my friendly face as I started down the shale slope.  "I'm looking for butterflies."  I said, and you guys have found the spot."  They were gracious and bid me good luck as the trio passed me on their way back to the trail.

      We were not disappointed.  There were many Indra butterflies on the moist sand, intermingling with a few Anise.  For whatever reason, there were no tiger swallowtails.  Also present were a handful of Propetius Duskywings, our first skippers at a puddle party.  There were a smattering of  Echo Azures.  I found this very interesting.  The literature suggests that this is a butterfly of our western, moister forest. But the sighting has been confirmed by the expert, so it can go in the book without an asterisk. 

Silvery Blue, Fish On Road, May 2024

   Perhaps the most attractive guest at the party was the Silvery Blue you see to the right.  Isn't it cool how the veins luminesce in the spring sunshine?  No wonder people like butterflies!

    The Indras were amazing with their black and white pattern, perhaps looking like a squadron of intergalactic fighters out of Star Wars.

     Regrettably, Sara's Orangetip has resumed its place at the top of the Most Wanted list.  Cait says if we wait a few weeks they will appear at a higher elevation.  We'll keep you posted. 

jeff