Anna's Blue to the Rescue

The Original Snorkelkids ca 2009

      It was coming up to the middle of August and the Butterfly Buddies (we used to be the Snorkelkids) were jonesing for one more lep to add to the summer's list.  We called on Auntie Cait, the Queen of Kelso, and all she had was head east of Mount Hood and look for a Golden Chinquapin in whose branches you might find the Golden Hairstreak.  But don't hold your breath; "its a difficult butterfly to locate."

Fifteen years later on Mount Hood

     As you know, I'm not a botanist.  If I had any confidence that I could tell a Golden Chinquapin from a Golden Goose, we would have been down in Eugene in early July looking for California Sister.  Suffice it to say, the Sister remains safely on the wish list.  Stay tuned next June when we search out muddy boat launches on the Rogue River where my children tell me those little devils run rampant. 

     So, with that exceedingly faint bit of encouragement, we got out on the road and headed for altitude.  By 8:30 on Monday morning we were sitting in front of the coffee urn at Timberline Lodge.  Through the window we could see cavorting Pine Siskins and some very streaky finches,   The bird guides convince me that it is a fool's errand to identify fall finches, Cassin's , Purple and House.   There were a few fat ground squirrels filling their cheek pouches with the alpine bounty, for the wildflowers uphill from the lodge were still thriving.  

   Sandra and I walked uphill and as we returned, we met a gentleman from Portugal, of all places.  We took some pictures of him with the mountain and he took about a dozen pictures for us.  It was warm, sunny and delightful.  

Ana's Blue, Timberline Mount Hood, August 2024

   One might have thought that we would proceed to see all sorts of butterflies.  But this was not to be.  We descended to Alpine Campground and walked back and forth for a couple hours, seeing nothing in the way of butterflies.  I explored across the street and found a gated dirt road that led to a delightful meadow where there were bees, but no butterflies. 

   A little after noon we had had enough of all this nothing.  While Sandra worked on a crossword puzzle, I took my net and crossed the street, walking back into that meadow.  Finally, I looked in the correct spot and there was a tiny female blue.  At first she was open and I could see her brown dorsum.  She then closed her wings revealing tiny black spots.    Luck was with me and I netted the little dear.  Back at the car, Sandra transferred her to the vegetable bag.  Through the bag we got a look at a tiny butterfly, white below with some exceedingly tiny black spots and  grayish brown on the dorsum. We saw no dorsal  distinguishing marks.  

Anna's Meadow, across the from Alpine NFS

   After a futile trip around the mountain to Mount Hood meadows, where the day had turned cold and windy, we went home.

    It takes about an hour to chill a butterfly and by late afternoon we were able to position her on the stick and get some pictures.  My opinion is that if we had not resorted to this extreme protocol, obtaining really good pictures of the ventral wings, we would not have been able to identify her.  Certainly prior to the photography we did not notice those delicate orange chevrons.   Of course, we were not the ones to do the identification...the best of our pictures was emailed to Caitlin, with the admonition that when I saw the dorsal surfaces up on the mountain I saw no orange.  

    Cait got back to us right away, saying:

Anna's Blue :)   The ones we have here are mostly brown with only a hint of orange,  less than most other butterflies that have it.

   We then repaired to the book, Pyle and LaBar, Butterflies of the Pacific Northwest.  Here we found that Anna's Blue lives in cool boreal forests above 3,000 feet all the way up to bare rock and ice above timber line.  The male is blue above with no orange and the female is mole-brown (as compared to dry leaf brown) with a hint of orange in the aurorae.  

    The butterfly then spent the night in our inside refrigerator.  This is the warmer of the two;  ice forms around the beer cans in the garage refrigerator and so it is used, vis a vis butterflies, for short periods and in only the most demanding circumstances.   

Anna's female, courtesy of Pyle and LaBar.

    So Tuesday morning we took the butterfly out and placed her under a stemless wineglass, hoping that she would unfold her wings so we could look for that orange aurora.  We waited for twenty minutes and then impatience ruled the day.  We shuffled the glass around, making the butterfly flip open for an instant.  This was too fast for our geriatric eyes, so we took a few movies.  I can now state, with the benefit of cell phone videography, that when a little butterfly flips her wings they are exposed for a mere fraction of  a second.  Not long enough, even with the most dexterous pausing, to get anything but a blurry look at her wings.  In the best blurry view, assuming I was so disposed, I could imagine a hint of orange.

   Now a hint of orange is something you might expect in a tequila sunrise.  I'm showing you the picture my guru uses in her book of the female Anna's dorsum.  Although that is less orange than you might find in Acmon's or Melissa's, its more than a hint of orange.. think maybe a screwdriver.  

    But as with many northwest butterflies.it comes down to subspecies.  In the book, we count 20 species of Pacific Northwest blue butterflies that have orange in the females dorsal wing.  Bob Pyle says, "few in our area (sub species P.anna ricei ) have orange in the aurora, unlike the subspecies found in California.  I guess the Anna's you find on Mount Shasta prefer screwdrivers.  

    When we saw the little butterfly above Timberline Lodge three weeks ago, it was almost certainly an Anna's.  Cait included Anna's in her speculation along with Silvery and Boiduval's.  Now we can all be sure that this unusual alpine butterfly is up at Timberline, which remains fertile territory for butterfly discoveries.

jeff