Photos, flight season, distribution and host plant information, conservation status, and identification tips for the Lareg Marble butterfly. Gallery Prev Next Hat Point Rd, Wallowa Co, June 30 Large Marble Euchloe ausonides Size: Up to 1.75 inches wingspan Key ID features: Above, milk-white with black pattern on FW tip and narrow black bar in forewing cell, sometimes with light white scaling. Below, bold green marbling with yellow wash against white background and yellow veins. Similar species: California Marble and Desert Marble are smaller. California Marble has pearly or shiny look to white areas on VHW, and green marbling is often darker. Desert Marble lacks white scaling on forewing cell bar, and DFW tip markings often black rather than dark gray. Host plant: Many cruciferous species. Habitat: Open montane and foothill slopes, dry meadows and canyons, sage steppe habitats. Range: All of eastern Oregon and southwestern Oregon south of Douglas County. Season: Late March to late July Abundance: Common Conservation Status: Secure

Here you will find the most valuable field guides and printed information sources for butterflies in Oregon and Lane County. Resources: Books New All-Color 5th Edition Finding Lane County Butterflies The new 5th Edition is a significant overhaul of the original book, with 5 new important sites added, 45 new color photos, 10 new color maps, and hundreds of clarifications and improvements throughout. It now includes 30 of the best sites for butterflies in Lane County (and a few just over the line in Linn County). For each site, it describes when to go, how to get there, and which species you are likely to find there. Using this guide, you can, with some luck, find most of Lane County's more than 100 species. Order yours now from the Lane County Butterfly Club. 100% of sales proceeds benefit the Lane County Butterfly Club. Butterflies of Oregon: An Atlas Honoring John Hinchliff by Jeffrey C. Miller, Paul C. Hammond, Dana N.R. Ross and Neil H. Bjorklund This 2-volume set raises the standard for presenting the current state of our knowledge about Oregon's butterfly species and subspecies and where they are found in our state. Volume 1 (Species Distribution) 218 pages 8.5" x 11", 177 maps, 354 color photos Contains full color distribution maps for each species, and each subspecies. Volume 2 (Synthesis) 290 pages 8.5" x 11", 45 full color maps,108 color photos A virtual road tour for exploring Oregon butterflies Discussion of relationship between butterflies and Oregon's environments Exploration of site record counts, and where they do and don't occur Discussion of patterns in butterfly distribution Discussion of caterpillar foodplant relationships Two volume set $95 plus shipping. To order, send an email to: oregonbutterflyatlas2026@gmail.com Anchor Atlas Butterflies of Lane County When it was first released in 2002, this pocket-sized field ID guide to the butterflies of Lane County, Oregon was the first of its kind. Other similar "pocket guides" have appeared around the country as publishers realize that people don't want to carry around a 5-pound book in the field. This guide will be replaced by an all new field identification guide that covers all of the Willamette Valley and adjoining foothills-planned to be released in 2026. Sold through the Lane County Butterfly Club. Proceeds from sales benefit the Lane County Butterfly Club. Available from Lane County Butterfly Club . This is the definitive guide for identifying the butterflies of Oregon and Washington. It's chock-full of information about each species, with maps, history, biological information and more. It won't fit in your pocket, but you'll want a copy for reference anyway. Available from Amazon.com . Butterflies of the Pacific Northwest By Robert Michael Pyle and Caitlin LaBar. This is the latest and most comprehensive guide for identifying the butterflies of Oregon and Washington. It's chock-full of information about each species, with maps, history, biological information and more. It won't fit in your pocket, but you'll definitely want a copy anyway. Available from Amazon.com . Butterflies of the Pacific Northwest This is the definitive guide for identifying the butterflies of Oregon and Washington. It's chock-full of information about each species, with maps, history, biological information and more. It won't fit in your pocket, but you'll want a copy for reference anyway. Available from Amazon.com . Butterflies of Oregon Their Taxonomy, Distribution, and Biology By Andrew Warren. This thorough scientific work provides the most in-depth coverage of Oregon's butterfly species and set the groundwork for taxonomy studies and books that followed it. For a deeper dive into Oregon's butterflies, this is your "go to" source. Available from Amazon.com . Warren Book Pocket Guide to the Butterflies of Washington, 3rd ed By Caitlin LaBar. This is a great field guide for identifying the butterflies of Washington. So small and light there's no reason not to take it into the field with you! Available from Amazon.com .

Photos, flight season, distribution and host plant information, conservation status, and identification tips for the Common Checkered Skipper. Gallery Prev Next Illinois River Rd, Josephine Co, April 23 Common Checkered Skipper Burnsius communis Size: Up to 1 inch wingspan Key ID features: Above, very dark brown, with gray shading basally on FW, boldly checked fringes and numerous bright white patches (longer than on Two-Banded) . Overall lighter than Two-Banded due to more white patches. Below large white patches, with jagged brown bands, edged in darker brown. Similar species: Two-Banded Checkered Skipper is darker, has fewer white spots above and less white below. Host plant: Various species in the mallow family. Habitat: Found in a wide variety of habitats, both disturbed and undisturbed. Range: All of Oregon except the far NW corner. Season: Mid-April to mid-September Abundance: Common Conservation Status: Secure

Ernst J. Dornfeld Back in 2001, when I hadn't yet realized that I was embarking on a 25-year project of documenting Oregon butterflies, I had a simpler, more immediate idea. I had simply decided that I wanted to go out and find butterflies in Oregon that I'd never seen before. Being of reasonably sound mind, I knew I couldn't just throw my camping gear in the car, toss some food in a cooler, and jump in the car and start driving around. I needed to have some kind of plan, including some notion of where these butterflies I'd never seen might be found. Enter Ernst Dornfeld, or, rather, enter his 1980 book The Butterflies of Oregon. Dornfeld was a Professor of Zoology and the Chair of the Zoology Department at Oregon State University for more than 20 years, and he ended up devoting a lot of his time to exploring Oregon for butterflies. I'd heard of his book from other butterfly enthusiasts, and I was able to track down a used copy of the now out-of-print classic that had been surplussed by the Spokane Public Library. It quickly became my "bible" of Oregon butterfly spots. In the chapter called "Oregon's Physiography and Butterfly Distribution," Dornfeld describes key locations for butterflies within 10 physiographic provinces in Oregon. I took notes furiously and made lists of the sites that sounded most promising. These first site lists informed my first forays out into the wilds of Oregon in search of our state's butterflies, and helped me learn some good locations that would visit repeatedly. Dornfeld also described some sites that no longer existed more than 20 years later, invaded by native trees that shaded formerly open areas. John Hinchliff It was only recently that I realized that some photos in Dornfeld's book of a tall bearded man wielding a butterfly net out in the field were of Dornfeld's good friend, John Hinchliff. Hinchliff was an architect in Portland, Oregon, well-known in architectural circles for the prominent public buildings he'd designed. Although I'd had an interest in architecture during my university days, it wasn't Hinchliff's architectural prowess that brought him to my attention. Hinchliff, like me, was a non-scientist who'd been bitten by the butterfly bug. He got that bug so bad, that he ended up leading a regional effort to create a published inventory of all the species of butterflies found in Oregon and Washington. This effort was inspired by the work of British lepidopterist John Heath, who in the early 1980's created a butterfly inventory document covering all of the United Kingdom. In 1994, eleven years after his friend and mentor Ernst Dornfeld passed away, Hinchliff had taken that inspiration and run all the way to the finish line, completing and releasing the Atlas of Oregon Butterflies, which he dedicated to Dornfeld. Where Dornfeld's book had included small distribution maps of butterfly records for each species, Hinchliff's atlas took the effort much further. Hinchliff and crew collected a much larger set of verified butterfly records, over 24,000 of them, and mapped them out to the subspecies level on full page black and white maps. I bought my copy of An Atlas of Oregon Butterflies at the Oregon State University Bookstore in about 2003. Immediately I found myself doing my best to extrapolate Hinchliff's map dots to actual locations on state maps and National Forest maps. These dot-smattered maps showed me both approximate locations species, as well as locations where butterfly records of multiple species were more concentrated, pointing to possible "hotspots" and corroborating many of the sites Dornfeld described. Now we're cooking with gas! Well, maybe not yet quite cooking, maybe more like prepping for the cook, but definitely serving up some great learning for me in my fledgling butterfly chasing endeavor! Andrew Warren It wasn't much later (still early 2000's) that I met Andy Warren, then an entomology PhD candidate in the Department of Zoology at Oregon State. He was doing what I wanted to do (scour the entire state for butterflies), but he was doing it on a much larger scale, in a much more systematic way, and with the clear purpose of furthering our collective scientific knowledge of Oregon butterflies for what would be his doctoral dissertation. When I spoke with him, he seemed to have gone EVERYWHERE in Oregon and to have seen every species of Oregon butterfly multiple times! That year I felt like I stuck to Andy like a leech, interviewing, poking, and prodding him for information about locations for all the butterfly species I didn't know where to find. A whole spreadsheet emerged from my conversations and email correspondence with Andy. By this time I had found and photographed more than 110 species in Oregon, but the challenges were growing ever greater to find and photograph the next new species. Andy's detailed guidance led me to many new species over a few years' time--a great gift of knowledge that made my own effort immensely more efficient and much less time consuming. In 2005, Andy finished his dissertation, and published it as "Butterflies of Oregon, Their Taxonomy, Distribution and Biology." This tome was another massive leap in the availability of published information about not just Oregon's butterflies and where they are found, but also the key information known about their taxonomy and biology, including larval host plants, preferred habitats, and key locations in many cases. Now we really were cooking with gas! I have used my hard copy of this book so hard that the binding is in shreds, and I now rely on a digital copy for my frequent consultations. Having spent many summers over a 25 year period chasing butterflies all over Oregon, I now have a pretty good feel for just how huge Andy's effort was to create this book. It was really monumental. Now let's take a moment to flash back to 1994, when Hinchliff's Oregon Atlas was released at the regional gathering of lepidopterists in Corvallis. My friend and colleague Jeff Miller was at that meeting when Hinchliff released the Oregon Atlas, and he was so enthused about what he had seen and heard that he found Hinchliff at the next break and proposed a next step to further Hinchliff's effort: to convert all of Hinchliff's hand-written records (which filled 17 three-ring binders) as township-range-section locations in an Excel spreadsheet, which could then be converted to latitude and longitude points, and ultimately mapped electronically. Hinchliff loved the idea, and Miller left that meeting with a mission. Between 1996 and 2000, Dana Ross and Jeff Miller, worked steadily on the project with help from Scott Sundberg of the OregonFlora project, and Jon Kimmerling of the OSU Geography Department. In late 2000, the team printed their first set of maps, and working from the digital data on Jeff's computer. Shortly thereafter, something happened that they hadn't planned on. Jeff Miller's computer crashed, motherboard, hard drive and all, and the data went down with the ship. Luckily, Miller made back-ups of his files! Unluckily, about that time a decision was made to dismantle the Department of Entomology, and so the back-up files for that program were deleted in preparation for that dissolution, including the spreadsheets holding Hinchliff's data! Oh the pain! A "crushing double whammy" as Jeff called it. All that was left of the digital data, was a towering stack of 3.5" floppy disks. Now we fast forward 18 years to 2018, when Miller, who had retired in 2015, and having recovered from the shock of the millenium data disaster, and with new resolve, pulled the data from that multitude of floppy disks onto his new and improved computer, with more advanced software. Then in 2020, as the COVID pandemic landed in Oregon, Miller needed a project during those days of self-imposed isolation, so he dove into to the project and began cleaning up the data and adding more records to the file. I wasn't aware of Miller's project until October of 2023, when I had a conversation with Jeff at the Northwest Lepidopterist Workshop in Corvallis. He told me he wanted to dedicate create a new and improved Oregon butterfly atlas, and dedicate it to John Hinchliff, and he told me how he thought I could contribute. He said he was very motivated to overcome that setback in 2000, and I could see the resolve in his eyes and I could hear it in his voice. He meant business. Jeff knew that I had amassed a large collection of Oregon butterfly records and photographs over a 20-year effort, that I had meticulously documented and organized in a database I had created from scratch. When he asked me about the data and photographs, I immediately offered them in support of his project. I had also reviewed thousands of butterfly sightings with photos that had been posted to iNaturalist.org, which also added to the collection that Jeff had already organized from other sources. The 2026 Oregon Atlas Team: Jeff Miller, Paul Hammond, Dana Ross, Dennis Albert. Neil Bjorklund Over the next three years, Jeff and I exchanged emails and data, and drafts of some sections of the atlas. Over those years, I marveled at Jeff's stamina as he plowed through stage after stage of the book project, overcoming one hurdle after another. Having done a couple butterfly book projects myself, I knew how grueling it can be to keep sitting down at the computer, day after day, chipping away at all the researching, writing, layout, editing and all the rest. Jeff's dogged determination, the countless hours he invested, and the team he assembled to review and edit the work got the new Oregon butterfly atlas done. On April 10, 2026, Jeff picked up the first print run of 300 sets of the two volume set from the printshop. Twenty-six years after he committed to John Hinchliff to do this project, he had completed it and gave all of us another monumental reference book about Oregon's butterflies and where they live, and much more. As Hinchliff did with Dornfeld's work, he took the state of the "art" several steps further: massively increasing the number verified butterfly records, creating beautifully detailed full-color maps, including color photos of each species, and adding a narrative with key information about the distribution of each species. Then he created an amazing and interesting second volume, which he called simply "Synthesis." Here he conducted some fascinating analyses of the data he collected, and presented much of it on gorgeous full-color maps. For anyone with a deep interest in Oregon butterflies, this is a must-have two-volume set! The groundwork laid by Dornfeld, Hinchliff, Warren and many others lives in Jeff Miller's new work. From my vantage point, Jeff is now standing shoulder-to-shoulder among those giants whose works form the pillars on which future authors will stand, to take the state of the art to the next level. Thank you Jeff for your determined drive to bring this treasure trove of information on Oregon butterflies to fruition, and thank you for inviting me to be a part of it. It's been an honor and a pleasure. Visit this page for more information on "Butterflies of Oregon: An Updated Atlas Honoring John Hinchliff," and how to order your copy. Thanks so much for reading! NB

After a very long gap in posts to this blog, some readers have wondered what happened? Did Neil finally fall off a cliff while chasing some nemesis butterfly species? Did he have a late mid-life crisis and decide to sell everything and buy a red Maserati sports car to drive off into the sunset? Did he just get tuckered out, and decide to take an unending vacation on a deserted beach somewhere? As plausible as those explanations are, the answers are: no, no and no. I was traversing the big wild wilderness of digital book revision, production and printing, a quest for wisdom and glory through overhauling my book, Finding Lane County Butterflies . If only some expert had written a concise little guide called Finding Your Way on the Path to Digital Book Printing and Production! If only my friend Penny had been hiking in front of me on that poison-oak-choked side trail! If only I had read the directions more thoroughly! If only the implosion of my computer hadn't forced me to get all up close and personal with what felt like the entire technical support staff at Apple! Oh the trials and tribulations! In the end, I walked out of that wilderness alive and well, with a brand spanking new, revised, expanded and improved 5th Edition of Finding Lane County Butterflies . A book release and presentation of the book will be held on Tuesday May 6, 2025 from 7:30-8:30 p.m. at the Main Hall, Hilyard Community Center, 2580 Hilyard St, Eugene ( map ). Please join us if you are in the area. With 100+ species recorded, Lane County is rich in butterflies, but to find them, you have to know when and where and how to look! If you’ve been wanting to learn more about butterflies in Lane County, to see more butterflies in Lane County, or to visit butterfly habitats new to you in Lane County, this book is for you! Author Neil Bjorklund will cover the how, the when and the where, as he presents the newly expanded and updated 5th Edition of his book, Finding Lane County Butterflies. For the first time the book features full color maps, 39 new color photos, five new major sites, new information about online resources and hundreds of updates throughout the book. Neil will guide you through the book and its back story in the way only he can—with gorgeous photos of butterflies and butterfly habitats and entertaining stories to go with them. Now I can get back to chasing butterflies and writing blog posts! Woo-hoo!

Early this spring, just when we seemed to be heading for the most severe drought in Oregon history, winter seemed to suddenly wake from its slumber and say "oh, wait a minute, I guess I'm not done yet." Clouds gathered, rain fell, and then snow. The parched ground soaked it up like a sponge. Everywhere I went it seemed people were saying, "I really miss that sunny weather, but we really need this rain." Nowhere was that more true than in Josephine County, which had been designated as an extreme drought area by those scientists who do that sort of thing. Due to this cold, rainy spell, I'd had to cancel two earlier planned visits to Josephine County and its riverine jewel, the Illinois, to search for the elusive Spring White ( Pontia sisymbrii ). This would be my 7th try over a 20-year span. I have seen the Spring White (well enough to identify it) only three times: in May 2003 in the Warner Mountains, in June of 2003 on Soda Mountain, and in May 2006 on the Illinois. I managed one somewhat blurry and out of focus photo out of those three sightings (see below). Whites are notoriously hard to photograph, unless you are lucky enough to find them puddling on wet sand or mud or nectaring on a cool morning. Which is why I was targeting this river's edge habitat in early spring, when there is more puddling habitat around. Oh, and it's called the Spring White. As the rainy days of April crawled along like chilled salamanders, I kept watching the weather forecasts for southern Oregon. I was hoping, longing, to see some of those happy little sun icons. Nope. Just depressing little rain cloud icons strung across every day of the week. Then, about ten days ago, I saw that there might be a window of sun down in the Illinois Valley over the following weekend, and I started to press my foot on the hope pedal. I knew it would be iffy to set out a-hunting for butterflies after all that cold and rain, but I just could't contain my desire to start my butterfly season another week! I packed up my "lep trek"gear in my typical not-really-quite-ready, first-trip-of-the-year kind of way and jumped on I-5 heading south, early on Saturday morning. I had estimated my arrival in the Illinois Valley at about 11 am, and that turned out to be pretty good timing, given that it was sunny, but still quite cool when I arrived. I started out walking on the Jeffrey Pine loop trail, near the beginning of Eight Dollar Road, where I soon encountered several Sara's Orangetips (after the taxonomic split, these are only found in Oregon along the border with California), a few tattered California Tortoiseshells and numerous Propertius Duskywings. It was pretty clear that cool weather-tolerant species would win this day. After about 30 minutes of walking, I saw a white flying about 50 feet in front of me. My first instinct was to reach for my butterfly net. However, in my first-trip-of-the-year packing frenzy, I had forgotten to pack my net (yeah, I know, I know). So, I would be at the mercy of this bug. Will it stop and nectar? Will it stop to sip some mineral water at a sand bar? Will it come land on my outstretched hand? To my chagrin, it didn't see or smell anything it considered vaguely attractive about (or anywhere near) me, and it flew on down the hill as if I didn't exist, standing there staring at it, churning with desire to know what species it was. "Why isn't that damn net in the car?" I said (carefully phrasing the comment to avoid any responsibility). I was headed for some sandy spots along the riverbank there, and hoped to get lucky with a Spring White or even two, happily sipping moisture from the riverside sand. As I traipsed along the river's edge, I spied two more of these whites, whatever they were. The second one stopped for about a millisecond to nectar on a white native mustard. Miraculously, I got one poor photo, but it was just clear enough to tell that this was a spring form of the Margined White, lovely with its bold black ventral vein bars, but, alas, not the object of my search. As I walked, I stopped to scan mustard family wildflowers wherever I saw them, as they are often visited by whites, orangetips and marbles. They are both preferred nectar sources, as well as larval host plants. In this area, I knew that I might see Sara's Orangetip, California Marble, Large Marble, Gray Marble, Spring White, Margined White or Western White. So when I began to see patches of Waldo rockcress, a purple mustard-family native flower in bloom, I let my hopes grow a bit. As it turned out, over the course of my two days along the Illinois, I would not see any whites at Waldo rockcress. Go figure. After a lovely walk around the Jeffrey Pine Loop, I headed back to my car for some lunch, and then headed east. I made a quick stop at what I call Butterfly Gulch, where two small unnamed streams flow down to and under Rd 4103. There I found several Sara's Orangetips, one California Marble, one Greenish Blue, one Gray Marble, a few Mylitta Crescents and a number of Common Checkered Skippers. No Spring White joy here either, but a nice variety of other early season species. My next site visit would be Sixmile Creek, a beautiful stretch of the Illinois with a dramatic rocky shore with many pools and seeps in the spring. Within a minute of exiting my car, I saw my first Pale Swallowtail of the trip, a couple of California Tortoiseshells and some Echo Azure blues on the sand below. A promising start. Gear on! As I made my way down the rocky access to the rock bed along the river, I noticed a stirring of a number of blues on a shaded rock, so I headed down there. I found a puddle club of many Echo Azures packed in cheek-to-jowl (just go with me here, I can't imagine jowls on a butterfly either) in a moist mossy spot that was partly shaded. I slowly moved in for a closer look, curious to see if there were any interlopers in the group. I counted them and got roughly 100, and at first I thought they were all Azures. I scanned them one more time... "gotcha!" One Western Tailed Blue was there, blending in nicely with its cousins, but slightly smaller, slightly more gray underneath, with its orange hindwing spot and tiny tail. Crawling all over and around the rocks at Sixmile Creek, I found several Mylitta Crescents, a few Common Ringlets (the really pale southern Oregon form), one Common Checkered Skipper, several Propertius Duskywings and a California Marble. I was satisfied that I had covered the site well, and I saw none of the larger white species so at least there was no question of whether a saw a Spring White. It was almost 5 pm by that point, and so I called it a day and headed to my Air BnB on the Rogue River for dinner and a night's rest. Next morning it was up early, a quick bird walk along the Rogue, and then a return drive down to the Illinois Valley. I started the day by walking down Road 011 off the Illinois River Road, which heads down to Star Flat and the Star Flat Fen (a bog with the strangely lovely Darlingtonia pitcher plant). The road continues past the fen, along Deer Creek until it reaches its confluence with the Illinois. There it meets the Kerby Flat Trail, which I had never walked. I decided to walk that all the way to Kerby Flat to maximize my time in the river corridor, and hopefully increase my odds of encountering a Spring White. I didn't know if it was a good plan, but it was a plan. It was a thoroughly enjoyable walk. From all the recent rain, there were puddles and seeps everywhere. In fact, there were so many wet spots, that I surmised that the relatively few butterflies must be spread out. In contrast, a good seep in summertime, when water is more scarce, will often attract a high density and diversity of butterflies to a small area by its relative rarity. It was cool again on this morning, and there were many more birds in evidence than butterflies. On the way down, I met a group of Forest Ecology students from Linfield College who had been down to see the Darlingtonia Fen. They were excited to be in the great classroom of the outdoors. They said they were studying for their finals by practicing their field skills, in the field . I commended them on their choice of places to study, and gave them my ButterfliesofOregon.com pitch. They seemed enthusiastic about visiting. I also met several Propertius Duskywings, a Persius Duskywing, a couple Mylitta Crescents, some California Tortoiseshells, a few Sara's Orangetips, and a couple Anise Swallowtails. They were a bit light on conversation, but I enjoyed their company. When I arrived at the confluence of Deer Creek with the Illinois I was greeted by a large sandbar which looked like fabulous puddling habitat, along its moist edge at the river. In one sheltered spot there, I found the only Indra Swallowtail of the weekend, with a couple of Anise Swallowtails, always a lovely sight. Just above that sand bar, I found the Kerby Flat trail and headed west on the rocky path. There were many patches of Waldo rockcress, a few Echo Azures, several more Sara's Orangetips, and more Anise Swallowtails. Eventually, I passed through a shady woodland and emerged into sunny Kerby Flat, the most obvious feature of which was the presence of several big, bright patches of Rosy plectritis (Plectritis congesta). Each flower has a lovely pink ball of color at the end of a green stem. Within a few minutes I saw several whites, actually nectaring (!) on the plectritis blooms. Now we're talking (I said silently)! I slowly crept closer to each one to get a good view through my binos, and identified one Margined White after another--five in all. Lovely, and distinct in their spring form, but decidedly not Spring Whites. I was starting to feel pangs of hunger, so I about-faced, and began the 3 mile walk back to the car. Again a pleasant walk, but again with relatively few butterflies. Back at my car after eating lunch, I began to strategize about where to go next. Back to Sixmile? Try Jeffrey Pine again? Or to the area around Eight Dollar Bridge? The bridge area felt right to me. I knew there was good puddling habitat there so I drove back out Illinois River Road to Highway 199 and down to Eight Dollar Road. I had scouted the area the day before, so I knew the key spots to check. In the primo sandy puddling spot, I found a bright, fresh group of swallowtails all packed in tightly. They literally kept pushing into one another as though they couldn't get close enough. They reminded me of little boys snuggling up to their Dad. On that same beach I also found a couple of Persius Duskywings, a male and female, like smaller versions of the Propertius Duskywing, with slightly less bold markings. These little duskwings, whose larva feed on legumes, weren't on the wet sand, but on wet gravel and wet charcoal. Those sightings rounded out the excitement for this spot so I headed back to the car, and decided to go back yet again to the Illinois River Road, and check a couple spots there. When I arrived at "Butterfly Gulch," I found it so empty of butterflies that I was a bit shocked. I had never seen it that way before. The previous day, it had a lot more action. So that ended up being a very quick stop. It was getting late in the day, and I wanted to stop at a roadside seep near Snailback Creek, which I knew from previous visits could be a good late afternoon spot. It was a fun, though white-free stop, but I did pick up a few new species there, including Silvery Blue, Northern checkerspot and Brown Elfin. By this point, it was feeling like I would be counting this as a warm-up trip and as a scouting trip, and that I would be making the drive down to the Illinois Valley again soon, to continue my search for the Spring White. Hopefully in a week or two, there were be more signs of Spring, and perhaps a white or two to bring the joy! Stay tuned for an upcoming blog on my planned first search for the newly described Asher Blue, which was identified as a new species last year, and formally described this past winter by Caitlin Labar, Jon Pelham, and Norbert Kondla. This new blue is closely related to the Echo Azure. The story of the Asher Blue and its namesake is really lovely, so please come back for that one! Below is the complete species list (21 species) from my two days on the Illinois, with counts for each.