It was hot in Omak, Okanogan County, for WBA’s Fourth Annual Conference in mid-July. Most of us Seattle and west-of-the-mountain types are not used to the 100 plus temperatures which we experienced in Omak.. To our relief, it was somewhat cooler up in the hills where most of the field trips took us.

As usual, everyone was good-natured and we had fun. The butterflying was great. The total count of butterflies we identified was 53. The total number of participants was just about the same: one butterfly species for each of us.

The favorite new participants for most of us were three-year old twin girls from Poulsbo – two blonde sweeties. When one of them was asked how old she was, she managed to free three fingers from each hand to hold up by way of response. Three for each of them. They kept reminding me of another little girl I heard about recently who while she was drawing had this exchange with her mother:

Mother: What are you drawing, honey. Little girl: I’m drawing God.

Mother: But nobody knows what God looks like. Little girl: Well, they will now.

Thank Heaven for little girls.

As usual, Jon Pelham was our star performer both in the field and at our evening get-togethers. On Friday, he and Idie Ulsh and Dave Nunnallee formed a panel to discuss with us how to identify some of the trickier Okanogan species that we’d likely be seeing in the field. Very helpful. On Saturday evening, Jon as at his best talking about ‘Glaciation and Speciation’. Nobody I’ve known in a checkered career of dealing with scientists is as good as Jon at helping us non- scientists understand the joys and vexations of “doing science”. Our best conference yet.

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