It isn't often that I get to write about actually finding and photographing an Oregon butterfly species that I haven't photographed before. It is exciting to be able to do so today! Today's find is a species that I have searched for multiple times over a 15 year period, and until today, had no photos to show for my efforts. The Hoary Elfin is a small, fast-flying obscure (hard to spot) butterfly that lives in and around patches of Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi). Some people call it bearberry, but I grew up knowing this plant as Kinnikinnick, and we had it growing in our front yard as a ground cover, under oak and birch trees. The "hoary" in this Elfin's name sometimes gets giggles from younger folk, but here it refers to the frosted look of the ventral hindwing, as in "hoarfrost." Hoary Elfin is widespread, but locally common in the northeast quadrant of Oregon, where Kinnikinnick grows, especially above 4,000 feet. West of the Cascade Range, it's a very different story. On the west side, it occurs in small, isolated colonies separated from each other by long distances. These westside remnant populations are vulnerable, and any one of them could disappear from an especially harsh weather event, an inopportune wildfire, or a significant human disturbance. The Hoary Elfin flies only from late April to early June, with higher elevation populations flying in the later part of that period. These western Oregon populations fly lower and earlier and thus have to contend with variable weather conditions of spring. Today, I found a few fresh individuals flying under cloudy skies with relatively warm temperatures (70°F). Like many very small butterflies, it is often easier to spot them by looking for their shadows on the ground, which are larger than the butterfly itself. Today however, there were no shadows at all, since the sun was not shining! So it was lucky that I spotted a few of them in flight, amongst the Kinnikinnick and joined by several foraging bumble bees. Success in finding and photographing this handsome little butterfly didn't require braving the elements, searching for days, slogging through treacherous terrain, fighting off noxious pests or anything like that. It just required knowing where and when to search. The vulnerability of these west-side colonies is why I'm not sharing details of the location where I found the Hoary Elfin today. These isolated populations of Hoary Elfin include some colonies along the coast and the Elfins in those colonies have been identified as a sub-species, Callophrys polios maritima. It remains to be seen whether other westside but inland colonies will be considered as the same subspecies. Many of these remnant colonies are quite small, and considered threatened and vulnerable, even though the species as a whole is widespread, especially in the eastern US and Canada. Our west-side populations are like genetic outposts at the edge of the species' range, which can harbor valuable genetic variation for the resilience of the species as a whole. I hope that we can conserve these outpost populations of the Hoary Elfin, while also discovering more of these westsside populations. Knowing that they can occur in widely separated locations with kinnikinnick from the coast to the foothills of the Cascades should inspire butterfly enthusiasts and scientists to search more widely in healthy patches of Kinnikinnick. There are now just 10 described species of butterflies that are thought to breed in Oregon that I haven't yet photographed: Oregon Swallowtail, Checkered White, Spring White, American Copper, Goldhunter's Hairstreak, Gillett's Checkerspot, Compton Tortoiseshell, Common Sootywing, Garita Skipperling, and Nevada Skipper. With luck, and good information from helpful colleagues, I hope to pick up a couple more of those this year, especially those that are relatively widespread and common!

Yesterday, I was at the central Oregon Coast, enjoying spectacular sunny, warm weather and great bird sightings. I went in hopes of photographing a flock of Snow Buntings, an arctic species that shows up in Oregon, especially along the coast in winter. I was lucky enough to find the flock and get close enough for some great photos. My butterfly photography skills came in very handy as I did my slow-as-molasses-in-winter "Tai Chi Walk" down the beach towards where I saw the flock land, and got surprisingly close. About an hour later, I was in Yachats, looking for another bird from the north that shows up in Oregon only along the coast in winter, the Rock Sandpiper. This species is seen in Oregon every year, in stretches of the coast with very rocky shorelines, but I had never been in the right time at the right place to see one. Yachats it a prime example of that habitat, and a friend had seen a Rock Sandpiper here a few weeks earlier. I saw and photographed several other species that inhabit the splash zone, but struck out on the Rock Sandpiper. Just after I had decided to pack it in for the day, I made one more round down the 804 Trail in Smelt Sands State Park. As I was scanning the black rocks for surfbirds and turnstones, I saw something totally unexpected. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something small fly lickety-split past me and land in the vegetation about 30 feet in front of me. My many years of watching butterflies gave me a strong sense that it was a butterfly! I invoked the Tai Chi Walk one more time, and with my birding camera on my tripod, I photographed this freshly eclosed adult American Lady. On December 16! Happy Holidays to you all, and may you be blessed with many gifts from nature!

With only 12 Oregon butterfly species yet to photograph, you might expect that each one takes me further into the remote and rugged wilds of Oregon. And for the most part, you'd be right. One of the twelve, however, is not only common, but also very widespread. It was just a lack of focus that allowed the Clouded Sulphur to elude my lens for so long. Oh, and there was the little matter of mis-identifying an Orange Sulphur as a Clouded Sulphur that made me think I already had a photo of it. From my past trips through the high desert of central Oregon, I knew a place where I could find not just some, but actually thousands of Clouded sulphurs: the alfalfa fields around Gateway, Oregon, just northeast of Madras. Back in 2002, I had seen the alfalfa fields attended by large numbers of Clouded Sulphurs, along with a few Orange Sulphurs, Mylitta Crescents, Purplish Coppers and Common Checkered Skippers. On that trip, I hadn't been able to get any photos--they were too easily startled and flew too fast and too far. Now, in 2019, armed with more experience, more patience and a more capable camera, I again visited those alfalfa fields. As soon as I drove alongside the first field, I realized I was quite lucky: the field had been irrigated deeply the previous night and there were muddy patches around the edge of the field. And, in another lucky coincidence, there was ample room to pull off and park next to this field. As soon as I was out of the car, I saw that the male Clouded Sulphurs were in mud-puddling mode and there were lots of them. Within 30 minutes I had many good images of male Clouded Sulphurs posing cooperatively in the mud. Next up was to find and photograph a female. Which I found to be much more difficult. First off, I was seeing very few females, and secondly those that I saw (through my binoculars) were nectaring and laying eggs on the alfalfa plants well away from the edge of the field. At this point, it was about 95°F with no breeze. I spent a very toasty hour missing one photo after another, and then getting one that was either out of focus or blurry from their fast movement, and then missing a few more. The best I could do that afternoon was to capture this somewhat blurred image of a male and female doing their courtship dance: I chose not to persist for a perfect photo of the female, and chose instead get a reasonable start on the three and a half hour drive home. I would be remiss if I didn't also share a photo of the lovely Mormon Metalmark, which I found in healthy numbers nearby along the Deschutes River at Trout Creek Campground. They were flying their fast and crazy zig-zag flight paths among the white-flowered eriogonum along the former rail bed. Fortunately, when they stopped to bask or nectar, they stayed put for some nice photos:

A little more than a year ago, I wrote "As of June 6, 2018, I have 14 species remaining to photograph in Oregon. If I'm lucky, I will be able to photograph four or five of those this year." More than a year has passed, and the revised list now includes these12 species: Common Sootywing (Pholisora catulla) Garita Skipperling (Oarisma garita) Nevada Skipper (Hesperia nevada) Oregon Swallowtail (Papilio machaon oregonia) Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice) Spring white (Pontia sysimbrii) Checkered white (Pontia protodice) American Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) Goldhunter's Hairstreak (Satyrium auretorum) Hoary Elfin (Callophrys polios) Compton's Tortoiseshell (Nymphalis l-album) Gillett's Checkerspot (Euphydryas gillettii) This is, for me, a most wanted list. A list of fugitives, that appear to be on the run (from me). Since I wrote that first post, I've made 75 site visits most of which were in search of one or more of these most elusive (for me) butterflies. If you have any information on the whereabouts of these species, please let me know! It's not that I've struck out completely. Of the 14 species on that previous list, I found and photographed the Sooty Hairstreak at Mt. Ashland, I found and photographed Weidemeyer's Admiral in the Pueblo Mountains, I found a photo in my existing collection for Western Cloudywing, and I found and photographed Ancilla Blue in Burns. A new species got added to the list from a taxonomic split: Chalcedona Checkerspot, and I found and photographed it this spring in western Jackson County. And I lost one, because I had misidentified photo of a female Orange Sulphur as a female Clouded Sulphur. So a net gain of four species, and, by my forecast a year ago, its been a lucky year! This spring and summer, I also went searching for the Oregon Swallowtail on the lower Deschutes River (I saw two, but never got closer than 25 meters), Goldhunter's Hairstreak at Kinney Creek and in the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument (nada, for the 4th year in a row), the Garita Skipperling along the Grand Ronde and Minam Rivers (zilch), and I had to cancel my search for Nevada Skipper near Ironside Mountain due to inclement weather. I saw a couple of likely Clouded Sulphurs yesterday at Three Creeks Meadow (see photo below), but had no chance to photograph them while they blew past me at about 20 mph. More on that visit in an upcoming post!

It was the biggest black bear I'd ever seen in Oregon... But I'll get to that in a minute. First, let's talk butterflies! I made a rocket-run down to Jackson County this past weekend in hopes of getting lucky with an early season Gold-hunter's Hairstreak (Satyirum auretorum). This has been one of my "nemesis" species, meaning I've done the 3-hour drive to Jackson County 3 years in a row to see and photography this species, and so far I've seen exactly 0 of them. So when Rob Santry posted some pictures he'd taken of S. auretorum in late May, I got all worked up, and wondered if there would still be some around in mid-June. I'd been searching for this bug in late June, slightly higher and near the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument. Rob was kind enough to send me details of where he'd seen Gold-hunter's, and I took that info and high-tailed it down to the Applegate Valley. Where I had a wonderful day of butterflying, tallying a total of 22 species, including one I'd not photographed yet. No, it wasn't Gold-hunter's Hairstreak. I didn't see any of those. What I did see was the Chalcedona Checkerspot (Euphydryas chalcedona), a species that was recently split from the Variable Checkerspot. The Chalcedona tends to be larger and have larger pale ivory spots in the spotband near the trailing edge of the upper side hindwing, compared to the Snowberry Checkerspot (Euphydryas colon) from which it was split. At Kinney Creek I didn't have much luck getting a decent photo of the Chalcedona, they weren't letting me get close enough for long enough to get a good shot. It felt like one of those "so close and yet so far" moments. As the afternoon wore on, I was tiring out, and I packed up and drove down the hill to find a spot to camp for the night. As I was heading north, on a whim, I turned up Palmer Creek Road, just north of Kinney Creek Road. I thought of my father, who always loved to explore a new spot and I got a burst of late afternoon energy from the thought of his love of exploring. Almost 6 miles up I came upon a moist seep in the road, with just enough sun and just enought moisture that a group of butterflies was mud puddling there, sucking mineral-laden moisture from the sandy roadbed. I pulled over to take a closer look. There were Northern Checkerspots, California Tortoiseshells, a Western Pine Elfin, and a few Chalcedona Checkerspots. This was a lucky find! Butterflies are generally much less startle-prone when they are mud-puddling, so we photographers can often get a lot closer. And these Checkerspots were no exception. I love it when I whiff on a target species, only to stumble onto another that I hadn't anticipated seeing! Now about that bear... I ended up finding a nice campsite up Palmer Creek Road, where some kind soul had created a well-made fire ring and left a nice pile of dry firewood. I enjoyed a nice dinner listening to the Western Tanagers and Black-headed Grosbeaks singing on all sides of my camp. After I cleaned up the dinner dishes, I decided to take a walk up the road just to "scout around." I had walked about a quarter mile up the road, when I heard a shuffling sound in the woods uphill to my right. I stopped for a moment to look and listen, and then I saw what looked like a black steer lumbering down the slope. I thought it was weird that I hadn't seen any signs of cows up there, but I've seen cattle in stranger places than this. Suddenly the "steer" heard or smelled me and raised its head to look in my direction. That's no cow! It partially stood up on its hind legs to get a look in my direction, and it was truly the largest black bear I've seen in Oregon. It would have been large for a steer! I did not want to disturb the bear (or be "disturbed" by it), so I quietly backed up and silently told the bear she could go on with whatever she was doing. It was one of those moments I didn't have my camera, but wish I had. In her honor, I named my campsite Big Bear Camp. I found it interesting that a huge bear wandering around a quarter mile from my camp site didn't interrupt the peacefulness of the evening or disturb my sleep in the least.

I'd only seen the Pale Crescent (Phyciodes pallida) one time in Oregon, or anywhere for that matter. And I only saw one of them. It was in 2004, in the lower Deschutes River canyon, north of Maupin. Back in those days, I was still shooting with slide film, while I was just beginning to learn how to navigate the world of digital photography. Jones Canyon is a side canyon off the lower Deschutes River, about 8 miles north of Sherar's Bridge, where native people from the Warm Springs Reservation fish for salmon. Its a beautiful stretch of river there, where the river narrows through a roaring water fall, with dip-netting platforms on both sides below the falls. Jones Canyon is where I found the Pale Crescent in 2004. It's not a particularly pale butterfly, being bright orange and black. However, its namesake crescent on the underside of the hindwing is paler than in many other crescent species. Last weekend I decided to visit Jones Canyon for the first time in 15 years. I was hoping to see and photograph Pale Crescent, Indra Swallowtail, and the Oregon State Butterfly, the Oregon Swallowtail. The weather looked quite favorable, sunny and in the low 80's. It was a blitz run, as I only had 2 free days. After rising early, I drove the 4 hours from Eugene and arrived at the Jones Canyon Recreation Area (AKA campground). After loading up with cameras, binoculars, water, and my iPhone to keep the list of butterfly species, I headed up Jones Creek. About 100 yards up from the road, the creek channel broadened out and there was some nice mud for puddling butterflies so I hunkered down on a rock to see what species might be flying there. Within 15 minutes I saw a Sagebrush Checkerspot. Then a Northern Checkerspot flew through. Then what looked somewhat like a very large Mylitta Crescent landed on a dead branch about 10 feet away. When I realized it was a Pale Crescent, I got excited. Back in 2004, I hadn't been able to capture the underside, or ventral view, of the butterfly in my photos. As I thought back to that 2004 visit, it felt to me like this was almost the exact spot I'd seen Pale Crescent before. Just like in 2004, I saw only this one. Just like in 2004 I got only one photo. Just like in 2004, my photo was clear! I finally had the ventral view of the Pale Crescent, which is, after all, where the crescent is! (Its that cream-colored half-moon on the trailing edge of the hindwing, edged inwardly by reddish brown.) The instant I had this image, it flew away, and I never saw another Pale Crescent the whole weekend. That's some nice luck! I spent several hours over 2 days scouring the lower part of Jones Canyon, hoping for Indra, Oregon Swallowtail, or another Pale Crescent. Nope. Overall numbers and species diversity were much lower than on my early May visit in 2004, though I did see some other interesting species, like this Large Marble. Next I continued on down the Deschutes River a couple miles to Rattlesnake Canyon. The creek bed was dry down by the road, but I suspected there would be water further up. Sure enough, about 1/4 mile up there was slow moving water in the stream channel. I hunted around the creek for an hour or so, and saw all the same species I'd seen in Jones Canyon, plus Boisduval's Blue. The last stop was a lesser known canyon beyond Rattlesnake called Box Elder Canyon. It was pretty quiet there, but just as I was leaving, I saw a small, dark bug zipping around in front of the large culvert under the road. It was very hard to follow its flight, so I just stood for a while, softening my gaze to be able to see the movement more easily. Eventually the little zipper landed. What's this? A Sheridan's Hairstreak? It seemed late for this species, but there it was. Admittedly a bit flight-worn and ragged: A fun and unexpected find in mid-May. With that, I packed up and headed home, resigned to more trips in search of Oregon's State Butterfly. It seems weird that I've only seen one or two Oregon Swallowtails on the wing, and never even had the opportunity to photograph one. And that's part of the fun of the "big board game" of finding and photographing all of Oregon's butterflies within the boundaries of the state (the big board). You just never know what you're going to find out there.

On Sunday, I drove down Interstate 5 to the Ashland area, in hopes of photographing the elusive Sooty Hairstreak and Sternitsky's Parnassian in the mountains nearby. As I pulled closer to Ashland, I saw a large plume of smoke arising from what looked to be the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument. Not good. This monument is a treasure trove of biodiversity, a mixing zone of the habitats and creatures of the Cascade Range, the Klamath Mountains and the Siskiyou Mountains. I didn't even want to think about what a wildfire there could destroy. Even though the smoke was getting increasingly thick as I got closer, I decided to drive up Baldy Creek Road, to see what conditions were really like. I've learned to not always trust first impressions... When I saw this sign, a little debate started up in my head. One side was the law-abiding, safety-protocol-following part of me (I could die in the fire and that's not how I want to go, it would be embarrassing to be arrested for trying to photograph butterflies, etc.), and the other was the I-want-to-get-this-done-now side (maybe its not as bad as it looks, maybe they're being overly cautious, I drove three hours to get here-I'm not turning around!, etc.). It was an interesting debate. The law-abiding side won after a few rounds. I didn't have a cell signal up there to get more information, so I drove back down to Ashland, and stopped in shady Lithia Park to ponder my next move. From the look of things the smoke was engulfing both places I wanted to visit: Boccard Point (via Baldy Creek Rd) and Mt. Ashland. Boccard Point was the spot for Sternitsky's Parnassian, a really stunning silvery white butterfly with black marks and bright red spots. Mt. Ashland was the spot for the Sooty Hairstreak, a dark and dusky little butterfly that was hard to spot due to its fast flight and cryptic coloration. I ate lunch in the park, and tried to contact my AirBnB host to see if she would refund my rental fee, since it appeared that I wouldn't be able to do what I came for. I hung around in the park for a bit waiting for her reply. After a while it occurred to me that there may be some handy webcams that could give me a view of what was going on up on Mt. Ashland. Sure enough there was one, and danged if it wasn't showing a perfectly blue sky and crystal clear air! This was just a few miles as the hawk flies from what I now knew was the deadly Klamathon Fire. The last I heard, two people have been killed in that fire, and almost 2,000 firefighters are doing their best to protect surrounding structures and habitats. Thank you firefighters! Now that I knew Mt. Ashland was clear, I skeedaddled up there to catch the last couple of hours of good sun, since it was already after 2 pm. Here's what I saw when I got up there: The most productive part of the Mt. Ashland Road for butterflies is the first few miles after it turns to gravel, west of the ski area. As I was driving, I remembered seeing more than 15 years ago what was probably a Sooty Hairstreak in a mixed sage/wildflower meadow a couple miles down, so I headed straight there. I hopped out of the car, binoculars and camera strapped on. I wandered through this meadow, favoring the rocky areas, since I knew this butterfly tended to be found near rocky outcrops. After about 40 minutes I spotted a small dark thing zipping around--could it be? I followed it visually as best I could, but the dang thing was moving fast and was really darkly colored--when it would pass something dark, I would lose it completely. Then I had to wait for it to move again and then start over. Then another dark zip-zip. Crap! Lost it again. Then another zip-zip. This time, I spotted where it landed! So I walked in my molasses-in-wintertime as-slow-as-possible walk to where I saw it land. Binoculars up slowly, and that's him! Now the hard part: getting close enough for a decent picture, without scaring him off on another eye-straining zippity-doo-dah escape path. Lucky for me, he clung to his perch, in part to avoid being blown off of it by the wind that was now starting to gust a bit. That's now a new challenge: macro photography of objects being blown around in the wind is not easy. Not only did I have to approach so slowly so as to not trigger his alarm system and send him flying, I also had to stand there in photo-taking posture until there was a break in the wind. Fortunately his perch was high enough that I wasn't all bent over and contorted, since I wouldn't have lasted long (in spite of all my yoga practice) if he was lower. Somebody watching me might of thought "Maybe that dude fell asleep while he was taking a picture-- he hasn't moved in quite a while!" My patience paid off. The wind paused, he didn't fly, and I snapped the first of several images of the Sooty Hairstreak. In the galleries, you'll see also see images I took there of the Arrowhead Blue, and the Sierra Nevada Blue, the latter of which is hard to find anywhere else in Oregon. Altogether, I saw 28 species of butterflies, mostly close to the wet areas near the road. A good day, that would not have happened if I hadn't checked that webcam to challenge my assumption about the extent of the smoke. Oh and I didn't cancel my AirBnB, and got to enjoy a nice stay in the Ashland area. Gratitude! Not that I'm counting or anything, but this is now officially number 148. 12 more to go!

Those last 13 species... some of them are not going to come easily. Over the years, I've spent seven days searching for the Gold-hunters Hairstreak in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Gold-hunters Hairstreak is a small drab, brown, modestly marked butterfly with tiny little tails on it's hindwings. Its mostly a California bug, but its range just barely crosses over into southern Oregon in a couple of spots, and this spot is the one with the most recent sightings. Knowing this species had eluded me several times already, I went to my go-to butterfly info-man Andy Warren, who has done amazing studies of the distribution of butterflies in Oregon. His book, Butterflies of Oregon: Their Taxonomy, Distribution and Biology, is my constant companion. Last year I went to the places Andy had gone, at the times he'd found the Gold-hunters Hairstreak--when I arrived at the first spot, I found the flowers dried up and only a few weather-worn Lindseys skippers. At the other site, I found a lot of wonderful butterflies, but no Gold-hunters. The very name "Gold-hunters" is echoing in my ears as I type, and bringing to mind images of wealth-seeking gold-miners in the 1800's chasing every rumor of a gold strike, in hopes of a big pay-off. A few of them got lucky, some not. Some died in the chase. Am I chasing rumors of gold, I wondered? This past week, I made another attempt, planning ahead to go down there a bit earlier, to avoid the chance that the Goldhunters' favorite nectar source, Spreading Dogbane, would be dried and done for the season. I was pumped up and ready for success! I packed the cooler, packed the car, made the three hour drive, got out my camera and binoculars, got out of my car, and walked the 150 feet from my parking spot down to the Dogbane patch, and... it had recently been cut: the tops (with the flowers) were all gone, likely trimmed by some kind of mowing machine. How could they?! This is the spot where about ten years ago, just a bit later in the year, Andy Warren had seen "dozens" of them. And they mowed the plants? Really? Ouch. Big sigh. Back to the car, and on to site number two. Up on Baldy Creek Road in the National Monument there are some good Dogbane patches at the side of the road. I drove up there, with threads of hope still intact. I stopped at the first patch, and my mood was elevated at the site of the Dogbane in full bloom with 75-100 butterflies of several species bopping about. Okay, we're on! Within 10 minutes, I spotted a small, brown, drab hairstreak that didn't immediately look familiar to me! Elated, I moved in with Tai Chi fluidity, a live version of slo-mo in action. Within a few minutes, I had a series of what seemed like good images. Wow! Could it really be that easy? I emailed a couple friends that'd I'd dined with the previous evening, who I'd told of my quest for the day, and shared my elation. I was so exited to get one of the hard ones! No more more three hour drives to Ashland! Knocked one off the list of 13! Woo-hoo! That evening, in my rented cabin, I studied the images from the day to make sure that they were sharp enough to meet my high standards. If they weren't up to snuff, I'd go back for more tomorrow. As I studied the Gold-hunter's photos, I found a series of sharp, clear well-composed images, but something was eating at me. Something wasn't quite right about them. So I went to my books and to the web to make sure that I had the right species. It didn't take long to figure out that what I had excellent photos of was a pale and relatively unmarked Hedgerow Hairstreak. Damn the luck! Hedgerow Hairstreak is a really fetching little butterfly, but its common near Eugene where I live. Not one of the hard ones. This made me think of something I've said a number of times when out birdwatching. For example "I tried really hard to make that WesternKingbird into and Ash-throated Flycatcher." When we really want to see a particular bird, especially one we haven't seen before, our mind will sometimes make us overlook the actual facts, and temporarily believe we are seeing something we aren't. And I really wanted that brown hairstreak to be a Gold-hunters Hairstreak. Discouraged, but still undaunted, I decided to spend another day in the Monument looking for Gold-hunters, instead of heading east to Bly Mountain as originally planned. I spent the morning poking around Jenny Creek on the east side of the Monument, and then headed up to Baldy Creek Road. The headline above probably clued you in to the ultimate outcome: a big fat swing-and-a-miss. There was a silver lining, or should I say a pearly lining? I'd previously made nine visits altogether down to Baldy Creek Road and four times I had days with more than 30 species of butterflies. But I'd never seen a day like this one! At the key sites where nectar sources were blooming or water was flowing, I just kept logging one new species after another! Seven species of blues. Ten species of skippers. I identified 44 species in all, a record day for me for a single Oregon site! As the afternoon stretched towards evening, I came back to the best Dogbane patch one last time. I found all the same species I'd found earlier, including that dastardly little Hedgerow Hairstreak that gave me the rollercoaster ride (thrill of victory, agony of defeat). As I was scanning across all these butterflies, this big white thing flies into the patch, right in front of me. I look at it and I'm thinking "what?!?" Its a Northern White Skipper, and I don't think its normally found here! Northern White Skipper is a big pearly-white spread-wing skipper that I've looked for many times to no avail. Here it was, two feet in front of me, happily nectaring away on the sweet nectar of Spreading Dogbane. So I snapped few pictures and then suddenly a little Lindsey's Skipper made a run at the big guy, and he flew off down the road at about 30 mph. Bye-bye!

As of June 6, 2018, I have 14 species remaining to photograph in Oregon. If I'm lucky, I will be able to photograph four or five of those this year. The logistics are complicated by the fact that several of these fly at the same time of year, in opposite corners of the state. The map below shows most of the sites I'll be visiting. Here's the list: Oregon Swallowtail - Papilio machaon oregonensis - found in river canyons in NE Oregon. Have seen it on the wing twice. Checkered White - Pontia protodice - infrequently found in the deserts of SE Oregon. Have never seen one. American Copper - Lycaena phlaeas - found on mountain-tops in the Wallowa Mtns. Have looked there once, to no avail. Sooty Hairstreak - Satyrium fuliginosa - found in Jackson County near the CA border. Haven't looked for them yet. Gold-hunter's Hairstreak - Satyrium auretorum - found in Cascade Siskiyou National Monument. Have looked twice - no joy. Hoary Elfin - Callophrys polios - found in the Blue Mountains, near kinnikinnick. Have seen them twice, but wasn't able to get photos. Ancilla Blue - Euphilotes ancilla - found in dry sage habitat near Burns, Oregon. Update: found this June 2018 in Harney County! Gillette's Checkerspot - Euphydryas gillettii - found along the rim of the Snake River canyon. I looked once, didn't find any. Compton Tortoiseshell - Nymphalis vaualbum - found along rivers in the Wallowa Mtns, but not every year. Have looked three times, and haven't seen one yet. Weidemeyer's Admiral - Limenitis weidemeyeri - found in creek canyons in far SE Oregon. Have looked three times in different locations. Have only seen populations that are hybrids between Weidemeyer's and Lorquin's Admirals. Western Cloudywing - Thorybes diversa - found along the CA border in Josephine County. I've gone to look for them 3 times. I may have seen them, but they're tricky to ID, based on their location and behavior. Common Sootywing - Pholisora catullus - found in disturbed habitats in NE Oregon. I've seen them twice, and got one very blurry image. Mohave Sootywing - Hesperopsis libya - found hot dry areas in E Oregon near lakes or alkaline flats. Have looked several times, and have yet to see one. Nevada Skipper - Hesperia nevada - found on dry, windblown summits in E Oregon. Have looked many times, and haven't seen one yet. This is my "nemesis" species.

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 nine players have reached that mark in the history of the sport (or eight if you nix Barry Bonds for his use of performance drugs). If you are or have been a sports fan, you know that "stats" are a big thing in that world. This week, I too reached a career milestone of 600, in the arena of butterfly watching, a milestone that I would not have even noticed if I wasn't such geeky lover of stats and data. Like a professional sports statistician, I log each and every butterfly site visit I make, with weather notes, site notes, species list, and in the past couple of years, the number of individuals of each species I see. It's a citizen-science style effort, and over the years I have shared my data with various government agencies, non-profits, and interested individuals. A few years ago, much to my surprise, the Forest Service thanked me on an interpretive sign at Box Canyon Meadows in Lane County, simply because I shared some of my data and observations from the meadows with them. A few years back, a friend of mine was hiking there on a summer day, and sent me a message on Facebook asking about the sign. I wrote back "what sign?" The following summer when I was in the area, I went to check out the sign. I'll admit that I was pleased that they spelled my name correctly (that's rare!) and thought it was awfully nice to give that recognition (lower right corner) to me and other contributors. As a bonafide data geek, I find it fun to collect and tinker with information to see what I can learn from it, how I can use it to get better at what I like to do, and how to organize the data so I can efficiently share it with individuals and organizations that are engaged in education or conservation work based on site data. There have been other inspirations, too. Back in 2006, I had begun writing a book on the key butterfly habitats of Oregon with my friend and talented environmental journalist Meera Subramanian. We had a publisher on board, and had submitted several draft chapters. Unfortunately, just at that moment, the little publishing company we were working with got bought out by a large publishing house, and the new owners nixed the project. With or without the excuse of writing a book, I stayed the course, and steadily kept on collecting and organizing data on my observations, just because it is enjoyable to me. As a result of my geeky data collection, I know that over the years I have: Recorded 7, 537 Oregon butterfly sightings Explored and documented 316 butterfly sites in 30 Oregon counties Recorded sightings of 160 butterfly species in Oregon Recorded 30 or more species on one day in one site 23 times Recorded 6 Oregon county records Recorded 40 or more species on one day in one site 1 time And, as of this week, made 601 site visits. Site visit #600 was a visit to Marys Peak in Benton County last week, where I stopped at Parker Creek Falls hoping to find and photograph an Oreas Comma (Polygonia oreas). Instead of Oreas, I found bright, fresh Satyr Commas by the waterfall. It was a good opportunity to experiment with using flash to enhance the sharpness and clarity of the images. The results made me want to continue to experiment with using flash: Earlier that day, I had stopped at Plunkett Creek, on the Kings Valley Highway north of Wren, also in pursuit of Oreas Commas. There were very few butterflies flying there that morning, and no sign of any commas, so I only stayed about an hour, during which I saw a total of 17 butterflies altogether. A paltry number for late July! After photographing commas at Parker Creek Falls, I had a hunch that I should go back to Plunkett Creek for the late afternoon light. Andy Warren had told me some years ago that Plunkett Creek was a good site for Oreas Comma in late July, and last year I took a trip up there to look. I spent several hours there on the shady trails along the creek, and in the mid-afternoon, an Oreas Comma finally showed up. It was in a little patch of sun poking through the forest canopy next to the creek, which is typically a good place to look for commas. I slowly walked over towards it. As I got near, it suddenly flew a fast circle around me, and promptly landed on my hand! Apparently I was sweaty enough to have an enticing odor and/or taste. It was a lovely, up-close and personal encounter with a brand-spanking fresh Oreas. The only problem for me was that it had landed on my right hand, which was holding my camera, so I couldn't easily attempt a photo. Not surprisingly, when I tried to encourage the little guy to move to my left hand for a photo, it flew off, not to be seen again. Doh! The Oreas Comma found in this area is of the subspecies silenus, which can be a stunning almost jet-black underneath, and I have been keen on getting a photo of one! So when I returned to Plunkett Creek that afternoon last week, I was especially watching for commas flying in the sunny patches in the forest along the stream. Eventually I did see one--it was in a really tough place to reach, in a ravine below me, on the other side of a tangle of blackberry vines, and I quickly scared it off by trying to get down there. There is just no way to smoothly and gracefully move directly through a blackberry thicket! Twenty minutes later, on the other side of the stream corridor, I saw two commas swirling in flight in a patch of bright sun, each trying to chase the other off. A couple minutes later, I saw one of them land--a Satyr Comma now perched on a Stinging Nettle plant just out of the sun. I took a so-so photo of it just to record it and to check my camera settings. Then I stood and hoped for the other one to return. Yes! It was an Oreas, and it landed not far from me, near the edge of the clearing. The only trouble was that to get close to it, I would have to immerse myself up to my head in Stinging Nettles! Which is exactly what I did! The adrenalin of seeing such a fresh P. o. silenus land near me helped me ignore the stinging on my hands, neck and face. I persisted with shot after shot until I was satisfied that I had some that were clear and sharp. Only when I finally backed out of that tangle did I really notice the sharp stinging of the nettles. It brought to memory a hike several years back with my friend Peg, during which we deliberately "shook hands" with some nettle leaves so we could time how long the stinging would last. As I recall, it lasted about 30 minutes, which my recent Oreas adventure confirmed. It is always fun to actually find and get decent photos of the butterfly I am after, and the nettles made this one memorable. A few days after I got home, a poison oak rash showed up on my forearm, so apparently it wasn't a pure stand of nettles! The Oreas individual I photographed is somewhat atypical in that the flattened "v" on the underside of the hindwing is rounded at the bottom making it look a lot like a backwards Nike "swoosh," instead of the more typical pointed-bottom "gull in flight" mark. As I reviewed my photos and sighting lists back home, and reflected on my 601 site visits, I wondered how many other butterfliers in Oregon have exceeded that number and what the number really means to me. I'm sure the great Oregon collectors and lepidopterists like Ernst Dornfeld, Harold Rice, Andy Warren, John Hinchliff, Dana Ross and others have made many hundreds of site visits. I concluded that mostly I am grateful that I've been able to make some modest contributions to educating folks about Oregon butterflies, some small contributions to our collective knowledge of Oregon butterflies, and that I've been able to enjoy this butterfly chasing game for more than 20 years. For me, that's a home run! Plunkett Creek List: Parker Creek Falls List:

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 of Spring Whites. That trip wasn't delayed by any of the usual things--not foul weather, nor forest fires, no personal crisis, nothing like that. No--I had walked into the opened-up back hatch of my Subaru and gave myself a concussion. Being tall has its advantages, and... Some of my friends suggested that perhaps in the future I should wear a helmet while packing my car. When my neck and brain finally were healed enough to allow me to get out in the field, I was excited. I had truly been missing my time in nature. This would be my 7th attempt to photograph our state insect, the Oregon Swallowtail (Papilio machaon oregonia). The Oregon Swallowtail is a creature of dry river canyons in Eastern Oregon and Washington. It looks quite similar to the much more common Anise Swallowtail, save for some subtle differences. The Anise Swallowtail has narrow yellow stripes on the sides of the body, whereas the Oregon Swallowtail has very broad horizontal yellow bands. The Anise has small "eyespots" near the tails on the hindwing, with black spots in the center of red spots. On the Oregon, these eyespots have black spots at the edge of the red spots. The Oregon Swallowtail is also larger and slightly different shade of yellow. These differences are not so obvious that you can ID them on the wing unless you are quite close, and know what you are looking for. My friend Rob Santry suggested I try looking at the boat launch at Mack's Canyon Campground, at the north end of the access road that runs along the Deschutes River, north from Sherar's Bridge. He hadn't steered me wrong before, so I headed straight up there. The day was sunny and it was 80 degrees before noon. The light was good and I was feeling optimistic. The first butterfly of the day was a brand-spanking fresh Boisduval's Blue, coming for some beach time, and the sunlight and minerals salts available there. Before long, a fresh Indra Swallowtail flew in, making a bee-line for the wet sand. It was so fresh that I wondered how it was so certain where that wet sandy beach was. Could such a youngster already have been there? Maybe it was born yesterday. I took this early swallowtail sighting was a good sign and hoped for more. I didn't have to wait long for the next swallowtail species to show. In fact, when they showed, the Anise Swallowtails came in numbers. At first glance, from the shady bench where I was watching the wet sand, I thought this could be the Oregon Swallowtail. My pulse quickened. Could I be so lucky as to have it show up in the first half hour? Well, no. As the third and fourth and fifth and sixth Anise came down to the beach, I checked each one for the telltale marks. Nope, Anise. No, not this one. No, this is Anise also. I'm never that disappointed to be in a beautiful place, photographing beautiful butterflies, so not seeing my target was only a dip in the road. Over a couple of days I saw many Anise Swallowtails, and a few more Indra Swallowtails. I focused on photographing them, even as additional species found their way to the wet sand (Juba Skipper, Gray Hairstreak, Columbian Blue, Mourning Cloak), since the swallowtails were so fresh and so cooperative. Later in the day, I took a scouting walk up Mack's Canyon itself. I couldn't recall having walked up that canyon before, so I ventured up. I was pleased to see Pale Crescent, Large Marble, Columbian Blue, Acmon Blue, Silvery Blue, and many Sagebrush Checkerspots. There were wild tarragon plants scattered around the canyon floor, these being the host plant for the Oregon Swallowtail. Wild tarragon doesn't look or smell terribly different from the more familiar culinary tarragon, and it stands out from its gray-green sagebrush cousins by being deep green and finely leaved. The next morning, I went back to the little sandy beach at the boat launch. It was cool and cloudy, but being stubborn, I just sat down and waited for the clouds to part. Luckily, and to my surprise, the clouds did part, and the beach was again bathed in bright sun. Overall, fewer butterflies came compared to the previous day, likely due to the cool, gray morning and delayed warmth. Most of the same species as the day before showed up one after the other. I was keeping an eye on the swallowtails, which were much more active in the early afternoon heat, when a huge Two-Tailed Swallowtail sailed in. It headed right for the spot where a couple of Anise Swallowtails and an Indra were already mud-puddling. Rather than settling in next to them, it repeatedly landed literally on top of one of the Anise Swallowtails. If I were to commit the scientific faux pas of assigning human motives to insects, I would say this huge Two-Tailed Swallowtail was bullying the smaller Anise Swallowtail, simply because "he" could (bullies are usually male, right?). I wanted to smack him upside the head, but refrained. I figured he wouldn't get my point. So I just watched his huge, pristine yellow and black self lording it over the little guys. After about an hour of not seeing any Oregon Swallowtails, the activity on the beach waned and I decided to take a walk up Gert Canyon, a few miles to the south. I like this walk because the upper creek usually has water in it this time of year, which supports both wildflowers and butterflies, and the views are quite lovely. I also just needed some exercise after sitting and kneeling for so long on the beach. On the walk up the canyon, I enjoyed many additional species, including Julia's Orangetip, Large Marble, Echo Azure, and Mylitta Crescent. Near the head of the canyon, I found this Indra Swallowtail nectaring on the plentiful Balsamroot flowers. Okay, our state insect still eludes me, but it's kind of like the game I used to play with my friends. "Hey, can I taste your ice cream cone? I want to see if I like it." "Okay, here, take a bite." Bite # 1. "Hmmm. Not sure if I really like it. I think I need another bite." Bite # 2. "Hmmmm. I think I like it, but I need a larger sample size." Ice cream owner now loudly protesting, and trying to wrest said ice cream cone from my grip. My annual trips to Deschutes Canyon are something I always look forward to. I love the place. I love the smells of sage and river water. I love hearing the Chukars chuck-a-lucking up on the hillsides, and the descending notes of the Canyon Wren song echoing down from above. I love the layers upon layers of red-hued rim rock lining the canyon walls, and the flush of green grass from the spring rains. That's the cake thats on offer there, and I always enjoy it. One day there will be frosting on the cake, and it will taste all the better for the previous efforts that led me to it. Oh, and next spring, I'll try to remember to duck when I'm walking towards the open back of my Subaru. Mack's Canyon Boat Launch List: Mack's Canyon List: Gert Canyon List: