I've been to Prescott, Arizona, all the way to Sedona

    Last week our family spent 5 days in the highlands of Arizona.   Our son now lives in Scottsdale, but temperatures, even as September rolled over into October, were in the mid-nineties in the Valley of the Sun.  And so, we opted to drive two hours northwest to Prescott.  We were exceedingly lucky to get an Airbnb a few miles south of town in the oak pine forest at 5,500 feet.  Phoenix is at a mere 1500 feet and that 4,000 foot altitude difference corresponded to a twenty degree difference in temperature.  

White Checkered Skipper, Goldwater Lake, photo Chuck Hill

    The day we arrived,  Phoenix experienced its greatest single day rainfall in eight years.  Our flight was delayed three hours in Portland, and when we finally landed, the Sky Harbor Airport was a disaster.  The facility had flooded and the Skytrain, which is the only transportation around this large airport, was out of service.  It took us over two hours to get to the rental car center and had it not been for the generosity of a fellow traveler, who had spent 40 minutes procuring an uber, we might still be there.

   Life in Prescott, which the fine folks in Arizona pronounce press-kitt, was laid back.  Cool in the mornings and after the first day, when it was still raining, pleasantly warm in the afternoon.  

The Acorn Woodpecker is the most common bird in Prescott

   On our second day there, when the sun finally came out, we made our way to Goldwater Lake.  At the end of Senator Blvd., this park with two man made lakes which once served as reservoirs.  It sits at an even 6,000 feet.  Our first stop was a mile deep in the park at Lower Goldwater Lake, created by a second small dam.  I spied a Pied Bill Grebe among the Coots on the lake.  But on the shore my son, Charles, spotted, and photographed this skipper which landed conveniently in the rushes.  

    Curiously, I had brought a bird book but no tome sufficient to identify butterflies.  Luckily, over the next day, Bob Hillis and Caitlin LaBar weighed in, and it was decided that this was a White Checkered Skipper.  Apparently, this is a common butterfly in southern states, but it was a life butterfly for us.  We were lucky that Chuck was turning into a lepidopterist. 

    We then went back to Upper Goldwater Lake where a helpful lady, who was interested in photographing Stellar's Jays, had sprinkled ample quantities of bird seed on stumps, tables and the ground.  This baksheesh resulted in a profusion of birds, squirrels and chipmunks.  The Acorn Woodpecker, which is easily the most common bird around Prescott, was present in large numbers.  But we also saw Pygmy and White Breasted Nuthatches, Moutain and Mexican Chickadees,  and Mexican Junco.   For a little color, we scored a Townsend's Warbler.   

Mountain Chickadee, Upper Goldwater Lake

    Try as we might, we found no more butterflies.

    A highlight of our trip was an excursion to Sedona.  It is a mere 45 miles as the eagle flies, between Prescott and Sedona.  In this mountainous country, however, one either takes a circuitous route or a very slow mountain road. Going up we opted for the faster roads and made it into Sedona in an hour and a half.  The sculpted red rocks are the show in Sedona and they still do not disappoint.  This despite tremendous development.

    My first trip here was in 1979 as a young birdwatcher.  At that time there was a single small road passing through a virtual crossroads of a village.  I've been back twice (it really is a pretty cool place) and each time the development was just a bit more advanced.  It had now been thirty years since my last visit and I gotta tell ya, the development has over run the rocks.  Bell Rock, perhaps the most iconic of the russet features, is virtually surrounded by shops and condos.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Iconic Bell Rock is surrounded by development.

    After the obligatory rock watching and shopping, we went to a portion of the Coconino National Forest, adjacent to Red Rock State Park.  In this picturesque setting, we were to try for our target butterfly.  As I explained to my co- adventurers, this is a variant of the Lorquin's Admiral, found in Arizona And  one that Bob Hillis had photographed a few years ago.  

    So we walked into the park.  For the first hundred yards it was a cement sidewalk.  The walkway deposited us onto a rough dirt path that hugged Oak Creek.  After half a mile we came to a fork.  We took the fork that led away from the creek and were soon rewarded with a tiny yellow butterfly.  I took a swipe at it, missed and then chased it back down the path until it flew into the meadow.   As I returned to Sandra and Charles, another of these tiny sulfurs appeared.  This time my son commandeered the net and did a fine job of catching the little devil.  

Chuck and Spirit dine on the red rock lip.

    Prize in the bag, we returned to the creek trail where, after another hundred feet, we found the red rock shelf that promised the magnificent view the park had to offer.  Luckily, as there were none of the picnic tables the ticket taker /money changer had promised at her entrance booth/extortion vault, we found a red rock lip ideal for sitting while we dined al fresco.  I'm including a picture of our rock lip dining site.  Someone doesn't want her name or photo on the internet so she, like the ghosts you will read about in short order, has been relegated to the spirit world.  Personalities aside, doesn't this look like good butterfly habitat?  

    Towards the end of this feast, I spotted a medium-sized black butterfly hovering above the nearby willows.  Not trusting the gerontocracy that was supposedly leading this quest, Chuck grabbed the net and sped off in pursuit with yours truly doing his best to keep up.  We rounded the stand of willows and waited patiently, but no butterfly appeared.  Could this have been the Lorquin's Admiral variant?  Stay tuned. 

   On the way back we drove through Jerome.  This is the shortest way betwixt Prescott and Sedona by mileage, but if you take it easy on winding mountain roads with sheer drops, it is much longer.  Jerome itself is a curiosity.  A former copper mining town, its old hotels now trade on being haunted.  The town hosts a Halloween party and if you are into that sort of thing, it might be worth a night's stay.

   The pass between Cottonwood and Prescott tops out at over 8,000 feet!

  Back at the ranch we refrigerated our little butterfly and then took his picture.  Here you see a good ventral look and a hint at the two black markings that occur on the dorsal front wing.  Both Caitlin and Bob Hillis quickly identified him as a Dainty Sulfur.  Like the skipper, this species is common in the southern states but, as it does not occur near Portland, it was a life butterfly for us.  

The Dainty Sulfur Butterfly, Sedona, Arizona 2025

    A few things about this butterfly.  First, the Dainty Sulfur is seriously small.  I thought it was about the size of the Echo Azure, the tiny blue butterfly we see in the spring around Dougan Falls.  Additionally, it is not butter yellow like some sulfurs.  Instead, it has a very pleasing yellowish green cast to its dorsal surfaces.  Lastly, once he warmed up, he turned out to be a better than average cribbage player.  

    The refrigerator at Casa Rebecca (which I name after our wonderful Airbnb hostess) was extra cold.  On our first day I left our ice bottles in the refrigerator and they did not melt overnight.  As a consequence, this little butterfly got more than its fair share of cold and was slow in awakening.  My son, being the soft-hearted soul that he is, took him outside, placed him on a leaf and warmed him with his powerful mechanics flashlight until he took wing. 

The ventral side of the Arizona Sister

   On more than one occasion this blog has resembled the journal of confusion and misplaced efforts.  This foray into natural science turned out to be no exception.  In preparation for writing, I asked Bob Hillis for his picture of the Arizona morph of the Lorquin's Admiral.  He replied that he didn't have such a picture, only the variant of the California Sister, known as the Arizona Sister.  iNaturalist confirms that Lorquin's Admiral does not occur in Arizona.  

   Luckily, I suppose, we didn't find either.  But if we had netted that butterfly near our Oak Creek lunch spot, I presume it would have been an Arizona Sister.  One can only hope that at that juncture we would have figured it out.

   As a final post script, there are rumors that Pierre Lorquin's ghost can be seen reviewing his specimens in the dark of night in the dining room of the Jerome Grand Hotel.  So if you choose to lodge in that ghostly edifice, be sure to take your Kauffmann's field guide and prepare for a night of spirited lepidoptery.

jeff