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!