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 the Gold Rush era, when some happy miner found a gold nugget worth $8. For us 21st century folk, that hardly seems worth naming a mountain after, but back in the late 1800's, $8 would cover room and board for one goldminer for several months. Present day visitors to the area will find not only Eight Dollar Mountain, but also Eight Dollar B

According to California lepidopterist Ken Davenport, author of Butterflies of the Sierra Nevada, the Western Cloudywing is one of our rarest skippers in North America, and is found only within "a very limited range in California and extreme southwestern Oregon." It occurs on limited sites in six counties in northern California, and in Josephine and Curry counties in Oregon. Oregon Mountain is in the far southwest corner of Josephine County, and that's where we find this scar

For Oregon lepidopterists, butterfliers and butterfly photographers, spring is the time to venture into stream and river canyons in southern and eastern Oregon. These canyons are often wickedly hot, brown and dry in mid-summer, but can be flush with green and bursting with wildflowers after spring rains. More water, more flowers, and more green growing plants means more butterflies. On the other hand, a dry spring can cause the vegetation to go into summer dormancy earlier