Skunked at Schnebley!

Given courage by the weather forecast for partly cloudy skies and high tem- perature of 59° at Vantage on April 6th, I decided to go ahead with a field trip that our members have enjoyed for many years as a season opener. Five of us remained ready to try the butterfly walk, including Paul Prappas and Carolee Coulter, from clear up in Nelson, BC! Sandy and Roger Mooney joined me from Spokane as well.

As you can see from our photo, the weather forecast proved to be overly optimistic! We spent 3 ½ hours in the Schnebley area, never seeing temps rise higher than 46°, and often with biting winds out of the southwest. The flora were well behind normal spring development, with only Spring Gold lomatium, a few small mustards and buttercups in bloom, although we saw a few interesting birds, such as Sage Thrashers, and Kinglets, there were no butterflies whatsoever. Sue Orlowski postponed her planned April 13 Hog Lake field trip until April 19, in hopes of warmer and drier weather, but had to cancel that one too!

Skunked at Yakima Training Center!

The forecast was for a low temperature with high winds, so the Yakima Train- ing Center field trip was canceled. However, a group of five hardy WBA members created their own field trip combining service work at two well- loved butterfly sites with butterflying for early fliers. Friday was sunny with a 56 degree predicted high, and we made Reecer Canyon our destination. Two frequently visited sites there needed rehab work. The first was a small meadow where there was extensive broken glass and bits of trash left from the fall hunting season that would pose a danger to children netting, anyone choosing a spot to eat or to simply watch the butterflies, and photographers bending down on their knees.

We share our forests and wildlife areas with hunters, whose license fees and equipment and ammo taxes support many of our butterfly habitats. I have had friendly exchanges with hunters late in the season on many occasions. They have been proud to show me their bows and warn me of areas to avoid. In general, they are respectful of the meadows that support them, also. We usually find bits of trash and rifle shells, but not much else. I’m always amazed to return in the spring and see the verdant green returning after watching the hunters pull their trailers onto the meadows in the fall. Unfortunately, this year’s group was an exception.

So Clean-up it was! We brought gloves and worked over the area picking up as much of the glass as we could. Everyone agreed that it felt good to be caretaking an area that had given us so much over the years. The Water Tank area needed repairs to the pipe that feeds the tank for the second year in a row. The tank leaks water onto a dirt road for puddling butterflies throughout the season. With some pre-planning on how best to make the repair, some rain gear and lots of laughter, a repair was made. Along with servicing these areas, we saw some early season butterflies: Mourning Cloak, Hoary Comma, California Tortoiseshell, Julia’s Orangetip, Echo Azure, Western Pine Elfin, Brown Elfin, and Moss’s Elfin.

The next morning, the day the field trip should have been, we awoke in Yakima to a temperature in the high 30s, and the wind was already picking up. We decided to go to Cowiche Canyon since it would be more protected from the wind. By mid-day it had warmed to the lower 50s and the Lucia Azures were flying. We saw around a dozen of these silvery blue beauties. We watched one Lucia clinging to a branch in the wind and being flipped from side to side as if it were a flag. The positive side of butterflying in cooler temperatures is that the butterflies open their wings to “sun bathe”. We were treated to basking butterflies on both days. Other than the Lucias, we only saw a Mourning Cloak and a Cabbage White in the canyon. Our five member field trip turned out to be grand in so many ways! And thank you to this group for the work that was done.