Mormonia and the Common Wood Nymph...a Trout Lake Odyssey

Zerene Fritillary, Peterson Prairie,  August 2022

         Recently a good friend noted, that since he didn't have an expert to verify his butterfly sightings,  it was likely that his butterfly list was larger than it might be otherwise.   Sandra and I are lucky, blessed with an expert, Caitlin LaBar, who seems happy to look at our pictures and correct our mis-identifications.   This occasionally results in a change in identification and a species remaining unseen and unclaimed.  On the other hand, Cait is always ready to give us an idea about where to look for something special,  so it more than balances out.

      In the past, I was always a bit peeved when someone asked me to identify a bird they had seen.  Bird field guides have been readily available for me my entire life and should enable anyone with half a brain to identify most of their own birds.  Butterflies are clearly different.  Even renowned lepidopterists who visit Western Washington to see new butterflies submit some of their pictures to a local expert (like Cait or her senior author , Robert Pyle).

    I didn't always see things this way and two years ago I was still attempting to make my own butterfly identifications and add these species to our list.  Last week I got to looking at my pictures from two years ago, when we visited Cait's secret spot 15 miles west of Trout Lake, Wa. On that day she had provided us with copious instructions that would lead, she said, to two difficult fritillaries.  zerene and mormonia,  We took lots of pictures in the field and caught one frit and brought it home for better pictures, something we now do routinely.  But we didn't send our expert the picture.  Instead we sent her field notes, as if we were dealing with birds. 

Zerene Fritillary dorsal, August 2022

      I labeled the photo  Mormon Frit perhaps because I really wanted it to be so.   After all, like Dorothy arriving at Oz, we felt entitled.  "We've come such a long way.  He'll have to see us!"  

    There were two dorsal pictures in the file, as well.  Medium sized orange butterflies with ornate black markings and a heavy black diaper band along the edge. I'm including these two photos at the start of this blog. 

  A few days ago,  I looked at the picture, looked at the book, and decided I had made a mistake.  Luckily, in a recent correspondence Cait had told us that because of early rains, the mormonia was present at the prairie and zerene had yet to emerge.  Poor  Sandra was loaded into the car and off we went, willy nilly up the Columbia.  We made the turn up the White Salmon and twenty miles later we were looking at Mount Adams through a haze of smoke.  This was enough to make one wonder just where the forest fire was and shouldn't we have been aware of this before we set out?   

Common wood Nymph, Peterson Prairie, July 2024

    Soon we were through the tiny village of Trout Lake and heading west out of town, on the home stretch for Peterson Prairie.  

    We arrived at the intersection that borders Peterson Prairie  just before 11 AM.  This is an interesting crossroads.  To the right, one is directed to Custus Indian Campground and the Huckleberry Fields.  Straight ahead is the Big Lava Flow and Mill A.  And tucked in the woods , twenty yards off the road, is a small shelter made from rough hewn logs with a floor of flagstones.  Inside you find a map of the area and a commemoration: the Peterson Prairie Information Hut was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1939 using the materials of that era.  If it bears a miniature resemblance to Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, this is not a coincidence.  It was created by the same people two years after completion of that iconic structure.   Why the CCC chose to locate this rustic gem in such an out of the way location is a mystery.

Mormon Fritillary, Peterson Prairie, July 2024

     As it turns out, Peterson Prairie is roughly the same elevation as the spot where we found the Hydaspe Fritillary only a week or so earlier, 2000 feet.  If you drove from the headwaters of the Washougal to Peterson Prairie it might take two and a half hours.  Its a long ways down, across and back up again.  But these sites are both in Skamania County and may be less than thirty miles apart.  However, if you drew a straight line between the two  and found a determined sasquatch, it might take him two full days to make that hike! Its rough country. 

     As we exited the BOT-mobile, the sky was blue and the forest air an invigorating 68 degrees.  Its a short walk through the moist woods to the meadow.  Out on the prairie we first saw several dark butterflies, the color of French Roast coffee.  We knew these butterflies from two years earlier... the oddly named Common Wood Nymph.  I mean, wouldn't you expect a wood nymph to live in the woods?  The fact is, they live near the woods but they are highly tied to grasses, where their green caterpillars make green chrysalises.  They should be called meadow nymphs.   There were plenty of  these Prairie Flappers and Sandra netted one in short order.  We transferred the dear to a bag which we left in the lone scrubby shrub out in the meadow.  He could contemplate his situation while we hunted frits.  

Mormon Fritillary, Peterson Prairie July 2024

    Obviously, the picture we are showing you was not taken on the prairie, but rather outside the front door of our condo in Vancouver.  Regardless of location, it is an excellent demonstration of the spots that determine the identification of the species. Its difficult to coax the butterfly to drop the hind wing so you get a good look at both spots.  Suffice it to say, the spots are the same size and this is a Common Wood Nymph.  True to its name, it is the species that we see commonly in our area.   On the other hand, although in previous years we have seen single individuals on the Deschutes and the Metolius, this is the first one we have seen this year. Perhaps it should be called the Uncommon Wood Nymph,   Peterson Prairie in mid-summer being the one exception.   

   Over the next 45 minutes Sandra and I chased little orange butterflies across the meadow.  These were fast moving butterflies and adept at avoiding capture when settled in the short grass.  They were impossible to photograph in the wild. Sandra is more of a stalker (gotta get her one of those Sherlock Holmes Butterfly-stalker hats), but she came up empty time and again.  Eventually I caught one on the wing and my sweetie deftly transferred him to a bag.  

Mount Adams as seen from Trout Lake, Wa.

    Talk about hit and run.  We enjoyed a small lunch in the car and then headed back out.  We stopped on the outskirts of Trout Lake for a classic Mount Adams picture.  The smoke had diminished so it's a pretty nice shot.  Curiously, there are no lodgings on this side of TL from which one might arise in the morning, pour himself a cup of coffee and gaze out upon this incredible alpine scene.  

   The pictures taken back at the ranch met with Caitlin's approval and the Mormon Fritillary is safely and verifiably on our list.  As for the sasquatch, he may be safe, too.  Its rough country.

jeff

     

The author trains his sasquatch for the cross country trek.

The Clodius Parnassian

                                                           The Clodius Parnassian    

 

The Clodius Parnassian is easily one of our favorite butterflies.  First, it is perhaps the most prevalent butterfly in southwest Washington that I was totally unaware of until we started watching the little devils six years ago.   I can't believe I missed it.  Unlike the blues, this is not a small butterfly.  It flops about in its dingy, white way that is hard to miss. And, with its fuzzy yellow body and handsome claret spots, it brings enough beauty to the table to merit one's attention.

Check out the proboscis on this hose hound

   Couple that with its staying power.  In the previous blog we stated that many butterflies cycle as a cohort.  They may appear for three weeks and not be seen again until the next year, or at an interval separated by months.  Obviously there are some species that defy this pattern.   Our parnassian is at the forefront of this group.  It appears in mid-spring and here it is, still the most prevalent butterfly on the Washougal in mid-summer. We see it earliest in the day and in the greatest numbers even after lunch. 

A Clodius nectars on Tara's cosmos.

    Not only that, but this butterfly occurs in neighborhoods, not just out in the wilder areas less traveled by the casual observer.  Here is a Clodius in nectaring on cosmos in my son's front yard in early August of 2023. 

    Finally we come to taxonomy.  Parnassians and Swallowtails are traditionally placed as a group at the head of the list by academic lepidopterists.  To my eye, this is so unexpected (I mean, does the clodius look anything like a tiger swallowtail?... I don't think so!) that I wonder if this was decided by DNA analysis.  Who, for example, would have thought that Zinfandel was in reality Primitivo?  But, no.  Somehow the pundits have placed the parnassians and he swallowtails in the same family, Papilionidae, for a long time. 

 

The yellow body indicates a female.

    So the Clodius Parnassian is first on the list, first in the spring and first in our hearts.  All of which is my long-winded way of introducing a limerick inspired by the beloved SKG as we meandered up the Washougal two weeks ago.  Enjoy at your own discretion.  

  The Clodius Parnassian

 My sweetie was determined to fashian,

a new name for the Clodius Parnassian.

She took a lady's spot of pleasure,

And a rich rapper's treasure,

And came up with Clitoris Kardasian!

    Parnassians are named for Mount Parnassus in Greece, the Home of the Gods.  And we all know what a bawdy group those Greek Gods were!

jeff
                                    

The Washougal in July and the Hydaspe Frit

    It was the very middle of July.  The Pacific Northwest had just endured its first scorching of the year, temperatures in three digits for three consecutive days.  But now we were in a cooler patch, with this day's high expected in the low 80s.  The evidence of the heat was everywhere, with the roadside weeds a toasty brown, and but a few fresh blossoms surviving at the top of the foxglove, which predominates on the upper Washougal. 

Snowberry Checkerspot, Upper Washougal, July 2024

   The water in Timber Creek, where Sandra and I had stopped for our second look for butterflies, was now a memory.  There had been a trickle two weeks earlier.  Now the creek bed a was a lush green, but there wasn't even a hint of a surviving pool and no moist mud for a thirsty frit.  And fritillaries were the order of the day.

 

     Before heading out, I had emailed Caitlin LaBar, who indulges me way more than I deserve.  I asked our guru whether she thought Mount Hood or our local spot on the Washougal would be a better choice for butterflies on this day.  She replied that it was a little early for the mountain and that she had been to the tree farm the day before and seen checkerspots and Hydaspe Fritillary; we should see both near Dougan Falls.

Hydaspe Frit dorsal,  Upper Washougal, July 2024

   Hydaspe Frit had been a buggaboo for me.  I knew that Cait regarded it as the most common greater fritillary in our area, but I had never seen it here.  In fact, we claimed it on the basis of a difficult look last august on Mount Hood.  We really wanted this butterfly. 

    In the past, I had always thought summer began on the day school let out, sometime in the first week of June.  Of course, this is a bureaucratic decision, presumably based on the agricultural needs of the early  20th Century.  Over the past few years, I have been learning that the calendar employed by butterflies is substantially different than that used by the educators of SW Washington.  In this instance, we had yet to see Lorquin's Admiral or the Snowberry Checkerspot.  Both of these butterflies overwinter in the chrysalis and emerge when the time is right.  Can I call this the first day of summer?

    As we waited at Timber Creek, a bit before 11 AM,  more butterflies started to emerge.  The Clodius Parnassians,  a species that persists for well over three weeks, had been fluttering around since we arrived a bit after 10, but suddenly we wee seeing checkerspots.  Sandra netted one and I photographed a couple others.  

Hydaspe Frit ventral , Upper Washougal, July 2024

    We weren't seeing any other species and so we decided to drive further.  This involved driving up a steep three miles on the narrow gravel road.  We arrived at a three way intersection at about 2000 feet elevation.  

    You didn't need to be Margaret Mead to recognize that the natives use this wide spot in the Cascade foothillls for activities other than lepidoptery.   A large fire pit surrounded by crushed beer cans and spent shotgun shells was just off the center of this wide spot in the road.  

   But up here, a thousand feet higher than our go to spot at Timber Creek, the wildflowers were fresh and look!  There goes a larger orange butterfly!   Schmoopie and I were out in a trice, nets in hand.  Sandra had the first whack at a potential subject that settled in the road.  She missed, but shortly thereafter I netted one on the wing.  A quick look led us to believe that we had captured our first Hydaspe frit.  

The Washougal in July burbles below the weedy car park

    We did not get any pictures of this handsome butterfly in the field, but here are our pictures from the lab.  We have been seeing Western Meadow Fritillary for months, but this was our first experience with a Speyeria frit for this year.  We sent the pictures to Caitlin who confirmed our ID and sent along a 😊 to confirm her approval. 

    Before leaving this alpine paradise we walked around the perimeter and got a good look at the season's first Lorquin's Admiral.  Perhaps we should make the effort to climb up to this spot more often.

   With two subjects safely ensconced in the back seat we drove carefully down the hill and on to the weedy car park hard by the now diminished Washougal River.  At this unassuming but productive spot we encountered more checkerspots.  In addition, I spotted a few tiny orange butterflies.  These guys were smaller than blues...a truly tiny butterfly.   I caught one and coaxed Sandra from the car to put it into a bag.    Three was our limit and we headed home. 

 

Here is a video of these little butterflies in the car park.  They have been identified by our expert as Mylitta Crescents.   As you may recall, we saw this butterfly a couple months ago, so this represents a second cycle for this handsome, if excessively diminutive, species here in SW Washington.   And down below we have a nice still taken of a female from the same spot in the middle of May, exactly three months earlier.

A female Mylitta Crescent, May 16, 2024, Weedy Car park

  So how does a butterfly, snug in his chrysalis, know that it is time to emerge.  This is the species imperative:   For many species every individual must emerge simultaneously and get busy creating the next generation of butterflies.  Those adults are only going to live for three weeks, so it is critical that they all emerge at once.  Of course, this is not universally the case.  We should see Lorquin's Admiral virtually every time out until the middle of September.  But the checkerspot and many of the fritillaries are absolutely under this time constraint.  If a Snowberry Checkerspot breaks out of his chrysalis three weeks too late, he will have missed his chance.  Natural selection over millions of years has perfected this mechanism, whatever it may be.

     I reached out to Caitlin, who knows almost everything about butterflies and she stated confidently that it was a function of temperature and humidity.  These are parameters that I recorded in 1968 when I was working at a fire fighting station on the Columbia River.   Mostly this job involved creating fire breaks with a hoedag.  But to our modern mind, the simple physical elements of temperature and humidity seem a short step away from manual labor.  If a high schooler 50 years ago could understand it, there must be something wrong.  Furthermore, it doesn't explain how a first generation crescent emerges in chilly May and a second generation accomplishes the same miracle in July, when any sensible butterfly would be looking for an air conditioned movie theater.

     And so I sought a second opinion from Daniel Rubinoff;.  Perhaps a real professor of the butterfly and moth sciences could put a more scientific face on the problem. Something a man of the new millennium could get behind.  Unfortunately, Daniel has fled his ivory tower in Manoa to look for moths (which are really his passion) elsewhere.  His machine promises that he will get back to us in five days.

    In the meantime, I'm putting my money on a host plant releasing pheromones that summon the butterfly, his lepidopteran pollinator, from his cozy chrysalis.  

    Yeah!  Pheromones!  That's the ticket!

jeff

The Butterflies of Black Butte

Northern Checkerspot, Black Butte, June 2024

     A week or so ago, our family vacationed to together at Black Butte Ranch.   This was Sandra and myself, my younger son and his wife, two grandsons 8 and 6 and Riddles, an 11 month Irish Golden puppy.  The house I rented for this gathering was big enough to be comfortable and the weather was pleasant, affording us the option of expanding into outdoor living.  

    Black Butte, ten miles west of Sisters, Oregon, and ten miles east of Santiam Pass, is renowned for activities favored by a young family: unsurpassed bike paths, several community pools and two championship golf courses through which the bike paths meander.   It is also known for spectacular mountain scenery.

    What it is not known for is butterflies.  The entrance to the resort is about ten miles total to the Metolius Preserve, about which we have blogged recently.  But I have vacationed at Black Butte many times, most recently two years ago in late June, and never seen much in the way of butterflies.  But butterflies there were, and a few were most definitely blog-worthy.

    Before I get into the butterflies, I'm going to regale you with a personality profile.  My daughter in law is a force to be reckoned with. She is smart and athletic.  At Oregon State she majored in business, as did her husband, who in his youth was no stranger to the joys of Black Butte.  Tara comes form a hunting family; a pronghorn antelope which she dispatched as a teenager, looks down balefully from the wall of their living room.  And yet,  she holds academic zoologists in disdain.  I know this because last summer, when my bride and I visited the insect museum at Oregon State, Tara allowed that she and her fellow business majors would make fun of the zoology students as they entered those formalin scented halls.

   Now I sort of get this.  I was once a zoology major and I remember taking stock of the situation sometime during my junior year.  I suddenly realized  that I wasn't being trained to perform any sort of conventional job.  Was I going to collect animals like Gerald Durrell and run a zoo?  Not bloody likely!  

    That epiphany is a story in itself, but you can see their point.  They were being trained to make money, which they have done, and my lovely daughter in law retired at age 39 to begin training as a triathlete.  Both she and my 8 year old grandson made the podium in Bend, a week before this family vacation.

   Tara loved Black Butte, which afforded her the opportunity to bike and run and swim in a manner that bordered on excessive. Which is not to say that she was alone, as many  fit young women were engaged in a similar endeavor.  Did I mention that the scenery at the ranch is spectacular? 

Indra Swallowtail, Black Butte Lodge, June 2024

    At any rate, things took a curious twist.  In the process of engaging in those outdoor activities, Tara started noticing butterflies. 

  On the second day, Tara got us down to the lodge pool by texting us a serviceable picture of a checkerspot on the pool apron. 

    While delighting in the killer view of the Three Sisters,  Sandra and I immediately saw a pair of Mourning Cloak butterflies.  In this instance, these amazing nymphs were abiding in a willowy swale just outside the fence that separates the yuppie-infested pool from the natural environment.  This has been a very good year for Mourning Cloaks, but even so, to have one circling me just outside the lodge pool was surprising.  Looking like some demented geek, I attempted in vain to net the circling mourning cloak.  While I didn't catch the butterfly,  I did catch some disdainful looks from a trio of bikini-clad dudettes, presumably on the way back to their condo for an Italian soda, what ever the hell that is.

    Inside the pool area, Tara had found checkerspots puddling on the cement apron. Seemingly they were sucking up water splashed out by, among others, my grandchildren.  Colsen and Reid were putatively learning to dive while perfecting their cannonballs and belly flops.  Suffice it to say, there was plenty of pool water outside the pool.

    This unlikely scene begs the question, "Does it surprise you that a self respecting Chloesyne would suck up this chemical rich brew?  What sort of conjugal gifts were these male checkers putting together?" 

     Luckily there were some checkerspots nectaring on the tasteful native plantings just outside the pool and we got a some killer pictures al fresco. Although we had no luck netting a Mourning Cloak, it was no problem to capture one of these myriad checkerspots.

    The difference between the many species of checkerspots, Mother Nature's answer to the Rubik's Cube, is baffling.  Pyle and LaBar, in their book, which covers Oregon, Washington and southern B.C., describe 11 species of checkers.  And they provide pictures that would enable you to distinguish among this mob. 

   However, in the process of introducing the group, Robert Pyle writes, "the checkers are among the comeliest and most confusing butterflies.  To beginners they all look alike."  I would submit that it may not be just the beginners that have problems with this group.

   Sandra and I took our pictures back to the lab where, with the help of Riddles, we produced a couple serviceable pictures which you see here.  We sent our pictures to Bob's junior author, the usually dependable C. LaBar.  We were hoping for Hoffman's Checkerspot, which their field guide says are limited to the moist woods surrounding the Cascade Summit.  Sounds like we were in the right place.  But Caitlin had a dog in the fight, having previously declared that the only place we could possibly see Hoffman's was at her secret spot somewhere near Ellensburg, Wa.   

     Suffice it to say, Riddles was no match for Caitlin's dog and we have to be satisfied with her identification, however tainted.  Northern Checkerspot.  Case closed.  I was hoping for Hoffman's, and I'm still not sure that I was wrong, but Northern was a life butterfly, as well. Tick it off!

    As long as we were down by the lodge, we looked at the handsome native plantings surrounding that swanky edifice and found a veritable flock of Indra Swallowtails.  We delighted in watching these big beauties flying from blossom to blossom, nectaring on blue flowers at the end of long, sturdy stalks.  This plant reminded me of  lavender, but that's coming from a pathetic non-botanist.  

   We took our photos in the garden and took one back to the lab.  Not only was this a real treat, but we were able to take him right back to the lodge for release!  This is a fate that, for better or worse, not all of our subjects enjoy

   Before this season, I had almost desponded of seeing the Indra, but now I had seen it twice. Even Caitlin was pleased with this discovery.  This should be a seriously difficult butterfly, but if you are following the blog, you may remember that we saw one at the Inn at 7th Mountain outside Bend, as well.  2024 is a good year for several butterflies.

    That evening Tara, our peripatetic lepidopterist told us of many butterflies on the far northern edge of the property, through which she bicycled earlier in the day.  The next morning Sandra and I found our way to that spot, only to unearth more checkerspots.  We dispensed with them and headed into Sisters for some well deserved shopping.  After hitting a few art galleries we had lunch at a cowboy bar, where I had more than my share of brewskis, explaining the accompanying snapshot.  This tale fooled Reid and Colsen, but I hope not you.

    Once I was bailed out of the hoosegow, we went back to the ranch.  On a hunch, we stopped at the lodge and, Land o'Goshen, there was a bevy of tiger swallowtails enjoying those ersatz lavenders.  I netted one, and, as we were parked more or less illegally, took off before we ended up in the Black Butte jail.  The accompanying pictures of a cooperatively chilled Pale Tiger Swallowtail are pretty nice.  And what about all that orange on both surfaces of the hindwing?  Pyle and LaBar tell us that there are no subspecies of the Pale Tiger Swallowtail, but this is a beautiful and very colorful

Silk tent caterpillar.  June 2024

individual, to say the least.

   As our last evening at the ranch approached, and Sandra and I were sitting in the cabin with Riddles, we received a call from my son.  The family was biking back from the lodge pool when they were accosted by a lady on the bike path.  "You've got to look at these caterpillars!" she exclaimed. "And look at the chrysalises!  Isn't it amazing?"

    James and the boys got home and soon Sandra and I were off, being guided by James and Colsen.  We found a nearby spot to park and made our way to an aspen grove beside the bike trail.  Almost immediately we found caterpillars, both large and small, and what looked like a caterpillar in the process of pupating, which is to say molting into a chrysalis, and many chrysalises wrapped in silk.

Caterpillar going chrysalis?  Maybe not.

 

   We took many pictures including one of Colsen posing as a young lepidopterist.   As a reward he received an erudite lecture on the buttterfly life cycle.   Once we got organized, an impressive collection of photos was sent sent to Caitlin.  She wrote back quickly saying that these were silk tent caterpillars and those things we thought were chrysalises were possibly discarded skins. 

    Not wanting to disillusion Colsen, we left him in the dark.  As long as he got to watch the cartoon with the black bear and the blue lemmings, I don't think he could have cared less.

    And so ended our Black Butte lepidopteran vacation.  We had a great time, saw a life butterfly and just maybe recruited a new butterfly enthusiast.

jeff

Let's catch a butterfly!

The Metolius Preserve 2024

Great Arctic Butterfly, Metolius Preserve, June 2024

        A year after I started watching butterflies, I wrote to the Bend (Oregon) Audubon Society asking for help with my new endeavor.  My query was rewarded with a response from two different ladies who watch butterflies at a high level in Central Oregon.  Amanda Eggerston has a job as a bureaucrat managing the environment and Sue Anderson is simply a really involved enthusiast.  I got several suggestions for places to look for butterflies and both recommended the Metolius Preserve.   

    The Metolius is a river that springs from the ground about ten miles west of Sisters, Oregon.  As the population of Oregon has grown, the Metolius, always a recreational magnet, has received increasing pressure.  What was once an out of the way stream is now a tourist magnet and is in the process of being loved to death. The hub for all this activity is Camp Sherman.  Little more than a cross roads with a small general store, Camp Sherman is surrounded by National Forest campgrounds on the river and numerous lodges.

Greenish blue on Sandra's finger

    The Metolius Preserve, on the other hand, is a highly managed tract of Ponderosa Pine forest well off the beaten track.  Although it has well maintained trails, there is little to attract the average tourist.  In fact, if it had not been for Sue and Amanda  I would have remained blissfully ignorant of this seemingly nondescript patch of forest about six miles from Camp Sherman.  The management involves the preservation of native plants and this creates a haven for numerous species of butterflies.  The ladies lead spring butterfly walks in the preserve and over the years have accumulated a list of 44 species that Sue kindly provided me with four or five ears ago.

    In fact, her list included host plants, plants upon which all these butterflies choose to nectar, etc.  Being an incompetent nincompoop when it comes to botany, all this information was pretty much wasted on me.  Pearls before swine!  But I preserved the list and that comes in handy from the What's Possible standpoint, a position which always serves well when watching birds.

Clouded Sulfur Butterfly, Metolius Preserve, June 2024

    And so, Sandra and I arrived at the preserve a week or so ago at about 10:30 in the morning.   As we prepared, three jolly mountain bikers pedaled through the tiny car park, but aside from that brief visitation, we were all alone. 

   We looked for butterflies for the next hour, in habitat that included the weedy area near the care par, a dusty trial through ponderosas, mixed forests, with willows, etc (remember, I'm not a botanist.) and a dry meadow.  The first butterfly we encountered was an orange and brown, medium sized  and engaged in fluttering flight.  This larger species, when examined back in the lab, proved to be a Great Arctic. 

    We captured a couple blues on this first day, Boisduval's and Greenish Blue. 

This was the first Greenish Blue that I had photographed in the laboratory and you can see that it's a pretty handsome fellow.  Although not very greenish.    

Western Tailed Blue, Metolius Preserve, June 2024

    We got the Pascivius Duskywing, a small black skipper,  and we captured a Clouded Sulfur, which was even more common than the Great Arctic, although not so physically imposing.  In all, we got seven species on our hour long walk and felt pretty good about our effort.

    Two days later, we took another walk in the woods.  Our start time was a bit earlier and in the car park we met three younger people with three dogs.  They headed off before us and we followed on the north trail a few minutes later.

   We saw a Clouded Sulfur, and then a California Tortoiseshell flew by, ascending to perch twenty feet up on a Ponderosa pine..  He stayed there for a while, presumably nectaring on pine sap.  Amazing as it may seem, this species is known to suck that viscous substance through the infinitesimally narrow lumen of its proboscis.  This defies explanation!  But they must be good at it, for the California Tortoiseshell is a fairly common species in the pine forests of Central Oregon.

   This north trail wound for a quarter mile through dense, moist woods and was worthless for butterflies.  When we broke out onto the Larch Trail, we saw the same Great Arctics and Clouded Sulfurs as before.  I captured one blue, which turned out to be an exceptionally natty silvery and Sandra netted a Western Meadow Frit, that tiny and widespread orange jewel that is a dirt bird for PNW butterfly watchers.

Lilac Bordered Copper, Metolius Preserve, June 2024

   So this walk wasn't really producing.  As we approached the tiny stream which bisects the preserve, I netted a small blue.  And when we made it back to the dusty car park I captured another tiny butterfly perched on a weed, whose name may be important, yet lost to the non-botanist.  Both of these required an intervention by Caitlin LaBar.

   The first she called a Western Tailed Blue.  I am loathe to question her identification, but the picture in her book is not similar to the one you see here.  Nevertheless, I guess we will accept the expert's opinion.

   The second may be the prettiest little butterfly we got on the trip.  If I had perused Cait's book with a bit more vigor, I could have identified the Lilac Edged Copper all by myself.  Her picture and mine match up perfectly.  The first picture you see was one taken early in the process.  We really wanted the butterfly to open up, revealing his or her dorsal wing surface.
  

Fully revives and ready to fly!

   To paraphrase Jeffe and El Guapo from the Three Amigos, Well, Guapo, when will the butterfly open herself up to you? ...    Tonight!  Or I will kill her!

   And so Sandra put the little dear in the freezer for a mere three minutes.  This period, although to us it seemed judicious, was enough to just about kill her.  We laid it out on the picnic table on the warm lanai and eventually it regained some color, sat up and flew away.  But not before we got the shot.

     So keep a good eye out when you are in those weedy car parks, and use your refrigerator for frosty beverages, not butterflies!

jeff

    

Tumalo Falls and the Califoria Tortoiseshell

   Last week our family spent four days at Black Butte Ranch.  In addition to Sandra and myself, this included our two grandsons and their parents. And by no means can I exclude Ridley, their eleven month old Irish-Golden Puppy.  We saw lots of butterflies and I have lots of material that should keep you amused for a week or two.  

Two Lepidopterists at Tumalo Falls

    In this first installment, however, I'm going to talk about the end of that vacation and our one day in Bend.  Following a hectic cleaning, loading, replete with hugs, we set sail in the Bot-mobile for Tumalo Falls.  

    Its a scenic hours drive from Sisters to the falls, less than that if you are coming from Bend.  As waterfalls go, its a good one and being positioned close to the tourist mecca that Bend has become, it is an exceedingly popular attraction.  Twenty uphill minutes from Bend, one enters the National Forest, crosses a one lane bridge, and then drives about five miles on a dusty gravel road to arrive at the falls.  We did so on a Sunday in late June, arriving around 10 AM.  

   I had thought that this might be early enough to avoid the crowd, but there were cars parked on the road for at least half a mile before the final ascent to the small falls parking area.  Luckily, as we arrived, someone pulled out and we were able to park right by the falls.  In three previous visits we had not been so lucky. 

California tortoiseshell, Tumalo Falls  June 2024

    Immediately we saw medium sized butterflies fluttering about.  One was silly enough to flutter against a sign and fell easy prey to my net.  After stuffing him in the Kimmy bag (named for the delightful Mrs. Hillis, who gave us our first insulated bag when she moved to St George, Utah, taking her husband with her) Sandra and I took the short walk to the falls lookout.  We took turns with our fellow tourists taking pictures of the falls and one another.  In addition to making new friends, it provides you with a glimpse at two aging lepidopterists in the field.

    We walked up the path towards the falls, along with many tourists, some on bikes and the rest shepherding a dog or two.  While many of the latter cleaned up after their pooch, enough did not that there were regular doggy deposits.  As my first lep mentor, Daniel Rubinoff, noted, butterflies like stinky stuff. And indeed, these deposits created foci for butterfly activity.  At one, I got what I was sure would be a good photo of the California Tortoiseshell taken point blank range and netted a second.

Catatonic Tortoiseshells   A Memorial Day Centerpiece

    Soon it was time to head back down and we parked at our favorite spot on Tumalo Creek, about a mile from the bridge.  This had proved to be a hot spot for butterflies in the past. On this day we worked the forest and the banks of the small river for about an hour.  We added an Anise Swallowtail to the list, which was thin gruel, indeed. 

    And so by 1:30 we were checked into our hotel.  Desiring cooperative subjects, I placed the butterflies between two iced beverage bottles and we retired for a short nap.  An hour later we rallied and set up our stage for butterfly photography.  Sandra retrieved the first of our subjects and placed her on a stick we had brought along from Black Butte. She placed the first butterfly on the platform and it fell over like a poorly balanced poker chip.  The second had a spark of life and listed at about 60 degrees.  

   At this point it seemed like we running a butterfly morgue, but over fifteen minutes they both righted themselves and we were able to get lateral pictures, proving them to be female California

A ventriloquist act with butterflies?  We've already got the stick.

Tortoiseshells.  

   Before the day completely got away from us we took a quick drive out to the Inn at 7th Mountain.  My thought was that if butterflies were coming to the flowering shrubs around the lodge at black Butte this might be the same on the slopes of Mt Bachelor.  On arrival we saw an Indra Swallowtail on the wing and a Western Tiger Swallowtail nectaring on a rhododendron.  I thought we were in business.  Sadly this was not the case.  I located the pool, with many plantings attracting a plethora of bees, (hence verifying the presence of nectar) but no butterflies.  

    Back at the Holiday Inn  the tortoiseshells were as we had left them and I thought that if they didn't revive I might take them home and spray them with something to create a permanent display.  During 60 Minutes they came to and started fluttering against the window, earning them a reprieve.  

    But now all I have is a stick with no butterflies.

jeff

     

Sexual Dimorphism and the Sagebrush Checkerspot

Andy Kaufman and Danny DeVito..Those were the days!

Bob Hillis, one of the best friends of the blog, has surpassed me as a lepidopterist.  Not that this is any Herculean accomplishment.  And it's no shame, either;  Bob is one heck of an animal finder and has a flair for identification.  Having said all that, Bob is playing the game at a distinct disadvantage.  His only field guide, as he lepidopterizes, are the mountains of Southern Utah is Kaufman.  

   We're not talking about Andy Kaufman, who portrayed the lovable Taxi mechanic Latka Gravis.  Thank you very much.  Andy died very young of lung cancer and, although there is no evidence that he knew a butterfly from a fly in the ointment, it's possible that up in St. Peter's arboretum he is waltzing around with a butterfly net, in pursuit of a tiger swallowtail.  Or perhaps those guys in the short white coats are chasing Andy through the arboretum with a somewhat larger butterfly net and a straight jacket.  Who knows?

The Checkerspot page from Kaufman, held down by RTP.

   At any rate, Bob Hillis is being assisted, solely, to the best of my knowledge, by Kenn Kaufman and his tome, Field Guide to Butterflies of North America.  Kenn, like many of us, began as a bird watcher and bird artist and segued to butterflies.  He is three years younger than yours truly and chooses to live in Ohio.  Make of that what you will.  At any rate, along with Jim Brock, who is a life long lepidopterist, Kenn has produced the bible of butterfly watching for our continent.  To the best of my knowledge, no one else has attempted to capture pictures and maps of all the butterflies of North America in a single volume.

    In a way, Kaufman's field guide is similar to Arthur Singer's North American Birds. where all the birds in (you guessed it!) North America are presented with distribution maps.  Kaufman does a pretty good job of getting all the butterflies into his book.  After all, there all only 750 species of butterflies to be found in North America.  But unlike birds, butterflies have extremely complex patterns and are remarkably different over even a small geographic range.  

    These regional differences are such that experts like our friend Caitlin LaBar are unwilling to pass judgement on some of the butterflies Bob Hillis finds in Southern Utah.   Cait annually terrorizes the butterflies in the Rocky Mountains, south of Helena, Montana, roughly 800 miles due north of St George, Utah.  So one might expect her to be an expert on Utah butterflies, as well.  But when it came to separating the Utah crescents, she flat out refused.  "Find a local expert."  she said.

    Let us compare this to bird identification.. If my nephew sent me a picture of a towhee (or virtually any other bird)  that he saw in the East Bay, I should be able to identify that bird with total confidence.  I might resort to a field guide, but with location, time of year and a good picture, I should have little problem.

    Last week Sandra and I went to the Deschutes River just south of the Dalles to look for late spring butterflies.  It was a very windy day and we didn't do very well.  But in a car park near the river we captured two small butterflies that looked remarkably different.   A bit later we returned to our favorite boat launch and witnessed the single species puddle party you see above.  If you turn up the sound, you can hear the Deschutes. 

   Now, if I wanted to be especially catty, I would ask you to identify those cute little flappers from the page in North American Butterflies.   They are Sagebrush Checkerspots, which are about 300 miles out of range according to Kaufman's distribution map.

Sagebrush checkerspot female, Deschutes River, May 2024

  

 Next I'm presenting you with a couple of my pictures.  The first was taken at the puddle party on the banks of the Deschutes, which at this point in its journey is a fast moving rapids strewn river descending through a desert canyon.  That alfresco shot provides a very good look (if I say so myself) at a male Sagebrush Checkerspot.  If one was using Kaufman, he would have a pretty good chance of making the identification, if he was willing to overlook the distribution map.    If one is using Pyle and LaBar (Cait's book) it should be an easy identification, assuming you have the patience to match up the numerous orange and yellow patches to the picture in the book.  

    The second picture, taken back at the ranch in highly controlled circumstances, is the female Sagebrush Checkerspot.  If one was using Kaufman they would have no chance.  His book portrays a Northern Checkerspot that looks a little like this butterfly.    Cait's book has a photo much like this one that matches perfectly if you have the patience for a careful examination. 

Sagebrush Checkerspot male, ventral

    The last two pictures are ventral shots of the Sagebrush Checkerspot, male on top, female below.  They are very similar but not identical.  As you may have surmised, I really wanted the female sagebrush to be a northern, which is less common in that area but was recorded last year.  I was over ruled, and more careful examination confirmed my consultant's identification.  

    If I had Kaufman's book as my only resource, I surely would have got it wrong. 

    So wherever you are, if you want to identify the difficult butterflies, the best answer is find someone who is an expert and willing to help. And if you are lucky enough to receive their help you can parrot Latka Gravas and say, "Thank you very much."

jeff

Sagebrush Checkerspot female