The Art of Waiting
The Nevada Skipper flies very fast and low in treeless habitats on windswept ridges. When the wind is gusting they can just disappear...
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Neil Björklund
- Jun 7
- 11 min
A Boy and His Butterfly
Earlier this spring, I learned in an unexpected way about an obscure disease called 4H Leukodystrophy. It is an inherited genetic...
256 views4 comments
Neil Björklund
- Apr 29
- 9 min
Searching for Spring
This year, just when we seemed to be heading for the most severe drought in Oregon history, winter seemed to wake up and say "oh, wait...
134 views0 comments
Neil Björklund
- Aug 15, 2021
- 5 min
Silverspotting
The Oregon Silverspot (Argynnis zerene hippolyta) is a subspecies of the Zerene Fritillary (Argynnis zerene), found along the Oregon...
182 views0 comments
Neil Björklund
- Aug 8, 2021
- 12 min
Puttin' on the Frits
Here in Oregon, as summer pushes on into July and early August, we get into smoke season, but we also get into the season of nymphalids...
187 views0 comments
Neil Björklund
- Jul 14, 2021
- 10 min
The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Checkerspot
I was packing for a trip to the southern Blue Mountains to (hopefully) photograph Garita Skipperlings for the first time, when I got the...
187 views2 comments
Neil Björklund
- Jul 10, 2021
- 8 min
The Tao of Skipperlings
The Taoist Masters of old speak of the principle of Wu wei, or non-doing, as being central to their way of understanding how the world is...
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Neil Björklund
- Jun 27, 2021
- 13 min
Heat Zombie and the Bakeoven Butterflies
As a second generation native Oregonian, I have always felt some kind of civic duty to photograph the Oregon Swallowtail, our state insect..
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Neil Björklund
- Jun 6, 2021
- 6 min
Hunting for the Gold
Isn't it curious how sometimes when we are looking for one thing, we often find something else that is equally satisfying?
141 views2 comments
Neil Björklund
- May 3, 2021
- 5 min
Chasing Our Swallowtail
My 2021 field season started quite a bit later than I'd planned, and sadly I had to skip a trip to the Illinois River in April in search...
187 views3 comments
Neil Björklund
- Sep 27, 2020
- 5 min
Seeking Answers In The High Places
It's 10 am on August 23, and I've just arrived at the bottom of the tramway that climbs 3,300 feet up to the top of Mount Howard, in the...
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Neil Björklund
- Sep 15, 2020
- 9 min
I Got Those Low-down, High Elevation Blues
Andy Warren's monumental review of Oregon's butterflies (Butterflies of Oregon, Their Taxonomy, Distribution and Biology) not only has...
225 views0 comments
Neil Björklund
- Aug 5, 2020
- 6 min
The 600 Club
In American major league baseball, the group of players who have hit 600 or more career home runs is an elite and very small group. Just...
200 views1 comment
Neil Björklund
- Jul 28, 2020
- 5 min
The Sternitzky Effect
The Mountain Parnassian is a denizen of steep, high elevation meadows with rocky outcroppings that support its host plants in the genus...
277 views1 comment
Neil Björklund
- Jul 7, 2020
- 5 min
Windswept
Andy Warren describes the habitat of the Nevada Skipper (Hesperia nevada) as dry, windblown summits of peaks and ridges, usually above...
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Neil Björklund
- Jun 29, 2020
- 6 min
La Garita Escondida
Back in 2004, I saw one Garita Skipperling (Oarisma garita) in what was then an unkempt lawn in front of an abandoned motel in Minam...
147 views0 comments
Neil Björklund
- Jun 15, 2020
- 6 min
An Eight Dollar Deal
Just west of the town of Selma in Josephine County, Oregon is a rounded butte called Eight Dollar Mountain. Some say the name comes from...
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Neil Björklund
- Jun 8, 2020
- 5 min
The Weeping Rocks of Oregon Mountain
According to California lepidopterist Ken Davenport, author of Butterflies of the Sierra Nevada, the Western Cloudywing is one of our...
139 views0 comments
Neil Björklund
- May 31, 2020
- 7 min
The Gold-Hunters
When I packed up my Subaru and headed down to Jackson County to visit Kinney Creek this past week, I'd forgotten about the mining claims...
149 views1 comment
Neil Björklund
- May 15, 2020
- 4 min
A Lingering Spring
For Oregon lepidopterists, butterfliers and butterfly photographers, spring is the time to venture into stream and river canyons in...
78 views0 comments