This was a great year and location for frits, hairstreaks, checkerspots! Our Saturday walk, by permit, in paper company land east of Potlatch, ID, proved to be a springtime wonderland adventure in acreage of blooming camas at Macumber Meadows. As it turned out, several colorful butterfly species enjoy these flowers for their nectar. The second stop was a forest area with small clearings about 5 miles further south at the Mt Margaret trailhead (USFS). The weather was mostly sunny and warm, with a short cloudy period during which we took our lunch break. Highlights included finding strong colonies of Cedar Hairstreaks and Arctic Skippers.

The camaraderie and good eats of the Saturday evening dinner were followed by a very good presentation by Bob Gillespie of Wenatchee Valley College, whose knowledge of the many hundreds of species of Inland Northwest bees and other pollinators had us all quite intrigued. Hats off to one of our local heroes, Teri Farr, who coordinated a silent auction that raised over $8oo!

The Sunday walk took us partway up Moscow Mountain, where our sharp-eyed lepidopterists were able to locate 3 more species to add to the list of 30 we’d compiled on Saturday. My personal favorites were the six Cedar Hairstreaks we found, some of which were freshly emerged, still tinted with lavender (see photo above). At 3,700 ft elevation we were a little early in the season but we saw a number of the same butterflies seen at Macumber Meadows, including another strong colony of Cedar Hairstreaks, and a Thicket Hairstreak and several other nice butterflies caught by David & Tanya James’ precocious daughter Jasmine, who wields a mean net.

John Baumann and David Nunnallee