It started as an inquiry from Bob Pyle about whether I had found the new butterfly to the Pacific Northwest; the Gold-hunter’s Hairstreak. Satyrium auretorum had been photographed by a gentleman from Tigard, Oregon at Swale Creek Canyon in my own backyard. What?? Of course not! He must have mistaken a California Hairstreak (Satyrium californica) for it. Yet for two years I looked and looked and found several hairstreaks but not the Gold- hunter’s.

The Gold-hunter’s Hairstreak is a California native found amongst the oak woodland forests in the California Coast Ranges and in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Its caterpillars thrive on Oregon White (Garry) Oak (Quercus garryana) along with other oak species.

Well, there is no shortage of Quercus garryana in the Klickitat River Canyon. Seems possible that it could be here.

The next step was finding out when it flew, not easy considering so very few of us knew that it was here. My first year I looked for it around the first of July but I was too late. I reasoned that the Klickitat River canyon is great butterfly habitat in the spring and about the first of June we get a change over from the spring butterflies to our summer species. In the summer we get Lorquin’s Admirables as well as a switch in our Swallowtail population. In the spring, we see Indra and Anise Swallowtails aplenty, but as summer approaches we see the Western Tigers, Pale Tiger, and Two Tailed Swallowtails. In the summer I see very few smaller butterflies because their nectar sources dry up. Only large strong fliers can find the necessary nectar sources.

So this year I reasoned why not start in late May and go through the first week of June to hit both sides of the transition period. So I visited many places along the Klickitat where I had heard that it was often seen puddling on damp river sand. After two weeks of searching I had yet to see it. I had met several other butterfly enthusiasts (often with very large camera lenses) on the Klickitat River Trail. They seemed to find it but not I. It even got to the point that on June 3 I was at the magic spot and had no luck – there were puddling swallowtails, blues, and sulphurs. On June 4 I tried an upriver location for a couple of hours before retreating from the heat. That was the day that Bob Pyle went to the downstream location and saw it! I tried again on June 5 and sure enough there were three or four tiny grayish brown butterflies puddling on the sand and perching on oak branches as well as a territorial Lorquin’s Admirable busily defending his patch of sand!

I had found it!! The Gold-hunter’s Hairstreak that had a gold flake sized thecla spot on the Ventral Hind Wings. I wandered upstream a few hundred yards to the tiny community of Pitt and found four others scattered along the unofficial boat launch banks. I even went back up to Swale Creek trailhead and found two perched on willow at the trailhead where I usually find the California Hairstreaks. It was back in its original discovery site. There is a little concern over the fragility of the colony so exact locations are not given until we can better assess the population.

Welcome to Washington my Hairstreak Friends.

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