The Goldenrod Crab Spider and the best of Bob Hillis

     Sometimes I feel like Professor Boisduval, who in my mind's eye is a chubby academic sitting in his museum in Paris and receiving specimens from his ace collector, Pierre Lorquin.  In the United States, Lorquin is most famous for his collecting work during the California gold rush, but he travelled widely and sent butterflies and beetles back to Paris from places like darkest Africa and Malaysia.  What a guy.

Double Tail Swallowtail near St George, Utah, June 2026

   In fact, Boisduval was a private collector, but his collection went on to become the Musee National d'Historie Naturelle.  Sacre bleu! As for Pierre Lorquin, his latter day avatar in this fantasy is my bon ami, Bob Hillis.  This spring, despite his complaints (everybody wants to see more, right?) this spring, Bob has sent me some excellent pictures of remarkable butterflies.  

   Most recently, he sent the picture you see here of an Arizona Double Tail, more correctly designated as the Two Tail Swallowtail, Papilio multicaudata.  He found this large swallowtail lying stunned on a gravel road at 7,000 feet in the Utah Rockies.  

   What you see here is this unusual butterfly cradled in Bob's hands.  The picture was taken by his lovely wife, Kim. Bob says Kim deserves full credit as she drives him nightly back to the memory care facility.  It seems that if you want to look at Bob's butterflies, you have to put up with his apocryphal tales.

An AI House Wren in the moist Ridgefield Woods

    When Bob told me his story, I curbed my jealousy and replied that the following day we were going to take Sandra's daughter, Leslie, birdwatching in Ridgefield and I was counting on a Lazuli Bunting lying stunned on the road. 

   We arrived at the Ridgefield refuge around 10 AM.  The first thing we noticed, was that in the intervening few weeks, the water level had dropped dramatically.  We still saw the Gadwalls and Cinnamon Teal, but long legged waders like the Yellowlegs were nowhere to be found.

   We made the obligatory stop at the blind.  Perhaps because it was cold and with a chance of rain, our friends the Black Phoebes weren't around.   On the bright side, the snipe were still making their winnowing sounds

Cascade Beard Tongue

    The Barn Swallows were now feeding their nestlings; four chicks nestled into their mud nest, inside the blind. Wheen an adult would swoop in, and the nestlings would stretch their necks and open their gaping mouths in hopes of getting the first bite. 

   We watched the area outside the blind for a while.  I was rewarded with a quick look, maybe ten seconds, of a small black bird with fluffy feathers as it scuttled from one patch of marsh grass to another.  I assume this was a Virginia Rail chick. 

   On our way back to the car, I pished the moist woods and drew a house wren in addition to the song sparrows, which are the dependable sentinels of the moist woods in the northwest.  The wren looked down at us from a mossy branch before flying away.   

     Yesterday Sandra and I tried to keep up with the Hillises...we went butterfly watching at Dougan Falls.  We made it to our first stop at a mere 1000 feet around 10 AM.  The sky was blue, at a crisp 60 degrees, and the nearby stream burbled merrily.  Cool, clear water, just what the Son's of the Pioneers had in mind.

Goldenrod Crab Spider with buttercups.

    We were early enough that we got to watch the butterflies emerge as the day warmed up.  First came the small, orange Western Meadow Frits, which was the butterfly that first attracted us to this area.  The larger fritillaries tend to emerge later in the season.  This little guy, as elegant as his bigger brothers, must produce brood after brood, as it appears in early May and is present all summer.   Sandra netted one and we  released it after confirming the ID.   Next came a Pale Tiger Swallowtail to be followed by a half dozen more.  They cruised up and down the road, chasing one another and nectaring on a small purple flower that was blooming on the slope. Google lens identifies it as Cascade Beard Tongue, also known as Penstemon serrulatus.  But why would you want to call it a penstemon when you have a common name that excites erotic fantasies among young lady sasquatches?

   I got a picture of the Pale Swallowtail having its way with the Beard Tongue...sadly there were no lady sasquatches to be found.

    The pale swallowtails were followed by Clodius Parnassian.  Sandra netted one of those, as well, and he was duly released to go find a lady Parnassian and entice her with his beard tongue.   It's that time of year!

Goldenrod Crab Spider, June 2026

   We then moved down to the Weedy Car Park, our most trusted spot.  The same butterflies were there, and we took note of a fine crop of thistles that should attract the larger frits in a month or so.  Sandra netted a Silver Spot Skipper that was nectaring among a patch of buttercups.  After we confirmed the ID and the skipper was released, Sandra noted that she had a tiny, bright yellow bug remaining on her net.  Soon this little yellow fellow was photographed and released.  

    We had never seen anything quite like it before and wondered if it was a tick or a small spider.  This led to some terrible jokes as we negotiated the bumpy road out of the forest.  If it was a yellow tick, would it carry Lemon's disease as opposed to Lime's Disease?  If I can't keep up with Bob Hillis in finding rare animals and excellent photography, perhaps I can give him a run for his money in bad puns.

    When we regained the internet, we found that this was a Goldenrod Crab Spider, Misumena vatia.  Only the females are bright yellow, and they are the vicious ones.  They live on yellow flowers (note that I included a picture in which you can see the similarly yellow buttercups behind the net).  When an insect, like a bee or butterfly comes to nectar on the flower, the spider leaps, grabs its prey with those powerful front legs and injects the unsuspecting insect with a powerful neurotoxin.  

   Sandra was very careful handling the spider, but she need not have worried.  While the toxin is fatal to pollinators, it is only mildly irritating to humans.  Sort of like Bob Hillis!  And me, too, I suppose.

jeff

Mormon Metalmark, Bob Hillis, May 2026, St George, Utah