Our friend Dick Lindstrom is on the road studying butterflies most of the time these days. I suggest that through G’Num and me he might occasionally report to WBA on his findings and experiences. He concurred, so here is the first report.

As many of you know, Dick’s most recent trip, with his fiancée, Shirley Sekarajasingham, has been to Chiapas, Mexico. Shirley describes Chiapas as “the poorest and least known of the Mexican states”. It is also the furthest southeast of the Mexican states.

Shirley is primarily a birder and secondarily a butterflyer and she identified many new birds. But Dick was somewhat unhappy at finding only 150 butterfly species of which 7 were lifers for him. He was expecting more. Why were there not more? Dick says they’d have done better in July and August, rather than the fall. Also, more and more land is being put to agriculture. That is, of course, a problem everywhere in Hispano-America. I think first of Costa Rica. Dick was particularly disappointed at not finding a single new skipper. Some of you are aware that skippers are now his specialty, and particularly those in neo- tropical areas.

But there were several memorable sightings. He and Shirley found a lovely little cloud forest reserve at Cerro Huitepec, near San Cristobal. There Dick found a Cloud Forest King. It was a lifer but what delighted him more were the circumstances: He was enjoying an old favorite, a mint-perfect Dart White perched on a flower. All of a sudden, the King landed on the flower and posed beside the White! Perfect!

They found another fine spot, with plenty of water, just west of Tapachula. There Dick listed sixty species in one day. His favorite was a skipper, a Stola Flat. Like the Dart White just mentioned, this skipper looked brand new. Dick told me that most skippers he finds in Mexico look pretty beat up compared with those found elsewhere. Of course, that makes them much harder to identify.

Dick has a special outfit for butterflying in rough Mexican terrain. He wears spats and knee-pads. Curious Mexcicans ask him why he wears them. He replies, “¡Protección contra los tigres!” They are really more for protection against snakes and dogs than for jaguars. As to dogs (not Dick’s favorite animals), he said that the dogs in Chiapas bark less and are generally less aggressive than they are in most parts of Mexico. And Dick has been in most parts. I have been with him there looking for birds and butterflies in Guerrero, Baja, Michoacan, and Jalisco.

Shirley gave me a long written report on his observations on the political situation in Chiapas, with particular attention to the indigenous people, who constitute 60% of the population. I’d be glad to share it with any WBA folks.

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