One of the best activities of WBA is the field trip program. Richard Lindstrom, our talented and hard working field trip coordinator, has planned an extraordinary slate of trips for WBA each year. This year WBA sponsored close to 20 field trips (including the Annual Conference). Richard gives us an impressive selection of trips in varied habitats and locations throughout the state, including 12 counties.
Highlights of this year’s field trips include the “Big Day” trip to Table Mountain in Kittitas County on July 7. The troop of 13 split into four groups, each approaching the ridge top from a different direction. The Big Day ended with dinner and tabulation of the day’s action at the Mineral Springs Restaurant. They identified an impressive total of 46 species of adult and larval butterflies, including a huge number of greenish blues, and a great arctic, usually found only in even years.
Trip leader Jonathan Pelham captivates onlookers with what?
In addition to butterfly larvae and adults, Jon and the April 21 field trip crew observed a vole, a cuddly snake, a cow skeleton as well as numerous plants and flowers, and were treated to birthday cupcakes.
Photo by Kiyoshi Hiruma
Though it’s often said that seeing six species is a good day of butterflying in western Washington, the May WBA field 12 trip in Thurston County lead by Bob Hardwick produced sightings of 21 species, including the Mardon skipper, Polites mardon. According to the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, the population of mardon skippers in Washington consists of a few hundred individuals present at only nine geographically isolated sites, three in Puget Sound and six in the southern Cascades. It is listed as an endangered species by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and is a candidate for listing by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The last field trip of the season was especially memorable – the group found seven new records for the Mount St. Helen’s blast zone. , an endangered species, the Mardon skipper, Polites mardon, was spotted on the May 12 trip in Thurston County. We hope to see all of you next summer!
An Ode or Autumn’s Eve: A Tribute to Trip Leaders
by Anonymous
As the season turns we all look back On summer days we spent
Traipsing through the countryside, Close upon the scent
Of anglewings and hairstreaks and Others that we meant
To find… but we dunno where they went.
To help us parse the butterflies,
We relied upon our mentors. If their knowledge is a grand old tree
Then our thoughts are like splinters.
On the outside, we may tease them bad, But we love them in our centers,
And we’ll miss the field trips horribly All through the coming winter.
Mr. Hardwick’s idea was just this:
Call it research and then we can’t miss! It may sound like work
That could drive you berserk,
But we’re really just following our bliss.
Mr. Lindstrom looks past our inanities And manages to flatter our vanities.
He can tolerate us so That he’s planned Mexico
Now we all are in fear for his sanity.
Mr. Nunnallee exhibits great fortitude
Faced with no-nothing fools in vast plenitude, But, rather than fault us,
He instead buys us malteds.
We should write in his name for beatitude.
Mr. Pelham appears to know everything, Yet he is patient with us who don’t know-a thing.
He’ll tell you a bunch
If you just give him lunch
And if you luck out he won’t get to sing-a thing.
And now a burning question is at hand. We ask in fear:
Can you stand to do it all again next year?
G’num 2001Vol2No4