Category: G’num Messages & Columns
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November Butterflies in the Yakima Valley!
Yakima, November 15, 67°F by David James In previous years, I have been excited and blessed to see butterflies in the Yakima Valley close to Halloween. Orange Sulphurs, Cabbage Whites and Sachem Skippers are often seen flying and visiting the last blooms of Rabbitbrush, right up until Halloween scares them away. To see butterflies in…
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A Symbol of Hope in the Midst of Drought!
By John Baumann Spokane, Sept 3, 2025, approaching 101° F I’d just finished lunch and was walking a bucket of vegetable stuff back to our compost when I spied a fritillary flying slowly and low to the ground in a weedy patch of our yard we call “the north 40”, where native shrubs and volunteer…
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Snow Mountain Ranch, Yakima, Field Trip
September 13, 2025 By David James, Trip Leader Our last WBA field trip of the 2025 butterfly season was held at Snow Mountain Ranch just west of Yakima on September 13. It was a sunny, warm 80 degree fall day and we were treated to eleven species including about 40 Coronis Fritillaries busy feeding on…
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Little Quilcene, Field Trip Report
July 29, 2025 By Karen Holtrop, Trip Leader Seven enthusiastic WBA members embarked on the Little Quilcene for Zerene (pronounced so it rhymes with Quilcene) and More Field Trip on July 29th. The trip took place along an old road corridor at the headwaters of the Little Quilcene River in the Olympic National Forest. And…
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Bear Creek Mountain, Field Trip Report
July 26, 2025 by David James, Trip Leader Six WBA members and a reporter from the Yakima Herald had a spectacular day in the flowery meadows below Bear Creek Mountain in late July. The flowers had only just started blooming but were putting on a great show along with 23 species of butterflies. There is…
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Red Top Lookout, Field Trip Report
July 13, 2025 By David Droppers, Trip Leader Bumpy road, steep trail, but it’s short, the views are good, and boy are the butterflies grand! We seemed to hit near the peak of abundance and diversity today, finding 29 species between the three of us. First stop was a marshy area, where Great Spangled Frits…
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Big Meadow (ID), Field Trip Report
July 12, 2025 By John Baumann, Trip Leader Spokane area WBA field trips concluded this summer with a truly Big Bang on July 12. At my suggestion, our threesome agreed to avoid risk of drought conditions on Mt Spokane by driving north through Newport, WA, to Bonner County, Idaho, where a great green flood plain…
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Umtanum Ridge, Field Trip Report
June 14, 2025 By David Droppers, Trip Leader Only two people dared to venture up to Umtanum Ridge on foot. While we did not definitively find the Nevada Skipper as hoped (may have had some glances, but they were great at getting out of my net once caught!), a great day was still had. In…
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President’s Message November 2025
Greetings, butterfly supporters, I hope you are enjoying the butterfly offseason and keeping busy until the 2026 WBA field season begins! I’m organizing photos from this past season. People often ask which butterfly is my favorite, which is difficult to answer, but it is usually the one I’m seeing in the moment. The WBA Board…
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President’s Message August 2025
Hello fellow butterfly admirers, As we begin to turn our attention in the waning days of summer with thoughts of hot apple cider and hot chocolate, I hope you had some wonderful encounters with butterflies and moths during this past WBA field season! Our first-rate trip leaders provided a variety of amazing locations, from mountain…
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WBA Big Butterfly Month 2025
June 21 to July 21, 2025 By Regina Johnson Our inaugural Big Butterfly Month is now concluded. Of course, any photos you post that were taken in the right date range will still go in the project, but I’m doing the analysis on observations uploaded by July 26. What, you don’t know what that was?…
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Eastern Tailed Blue Discovered in the Willapa Hills
By Robert Michael Pyle Butterfly survey in the Willapa Hills of Southwest Washington has largely been shut down because they are almost all privately owned forest land, and the timber companies have gated nearly all their roads in recent years. The companies used to invite the public onto their lands and even published a recreation…
