By Dan Dunphy

The Grand Cinema in Tacoma occasionally screens programs that offer moviegoers shows and documentaries with an eye towards science? learning, in addition to entertainment. To enhance the experience, someone is brought in to speak to the audience before the film starts; priming them for the subject they are about to view. This past winter, the Cinema’s education director, Paul Richter, reached out to the Washington Butterfly Association to ask if we would like to present a short talk on butterflies prior to their showing of a 2024 documentary on moths titled Nocturnes. The WBA board liked the idea and immediately reached out to our own moth (and butterfly) expert, David Droppers, who agreed to deliver an informative introduction to the packed theater. Nocturnes follows a lepidopterist and her assistants into the lush forests of the Eastern Himalayas seeking hawk moth species to catalog, count and measure for ecological and environmental clues potentially correlating to the planet’s changing climate. For me, the film illustrated how much patience and determination is required for exploring and studying insects in the wild (think streaks of formidable weather, steep hiking, hour upon hour waiting for your moths that just do not show up to your white sheets – oh, yes, and wild forest elephants!) Of course there were also times of rewards for those efforts: nights when 1000s of moths arrive in all their glorious forms, sizes and color patterns. To supplement David’s outreach efforts WBA Board members Dan Dunphy, Liz Kuehn and Melanie Weiss set up a small table in the back of the theater with brochures and bookmarks and were available for anyone wanting to learning more about moths, butterflies and our organization. A few enthusiastic folks stepped up to engage us with the questions and stories about their interests in leps. Special thanks to the Grand Cinema for inviting us to the show! And another BIG thank you to Paulette Murphy for her generous donation to WBA related to this event.

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