Watching Washington Butterflies with Bob Pyle: Number Thirty Four

It’s not an easy thing to summarize a brimmingly full field season in one short column, but I’ll give it a try. Where I left off, I’d just had my first good Gorge trip of the year, meeting Indra, Propertius, Julia, and pow-wowing Klickitats and Yakamas way up Rock Creek.

As May began, I joined Jon Pelham and David Droppers for a return to Reecer Creek, which had produced the last “new species” of 2017, the Mormon Metalmark. What a different scene now-all green, with spring wildflowers and no smoke! It was a relief to find Sheridan’s Green Hairstreaks as I’d missed them in the desert earlier. We had a three- elfin day, with Pine and Moss’s at Reecer, and Brown at Umtanum Canyon in the afternoon.

My next companion was Caitlin LaBar. Soon after our new field guide appeared, on May 12, she took me to Skamania County. Columbia Blues thronged the g’nums below Dog Mountain, while Bear Creek and Grassy Knoll flickered with Bramble Green Hairstreaks and other spring specials. At the end of the day we found Juba Skippers, # 75, going to roost in firs above Peterson Prairie, not long free from snow and not a green blade of grass yet in sight.

A west-side trip four days later took me to Mason County, where I finished out the elfins with Hoaries on the kinnikinnick prairies northwest of Shelton; but failed to find Johnson’s Hairstreak at Staircase in Olympic National Park above Lake Cushman, the first place I’d ever seen it. No sooner home than I was over White Pass to Cowiche Canyon near Yakima, in hopes of the narrowly restricted Lucia Blues-and there they were, shimmering all around the footbridge.

That was easy, but then came the most trying drive of the year: to the summit of Umtanum Ridge. Not by the usual route from the north, which is bad enough, but from the south, through Selah. The sign says “dead end,” and so it should be. I’m surprised I didn’t murder the Subaru scaling that vertical rock-pit of a road, the most evil I ever hope to face. But it was worth it: on top, after hiking to the towers, my shattered frame had just about had it when (after 7 p.m.!) up popped the first Nevada Skipper I’ve ever seen in Washington, followed by half a dozen brilliant Western Green Hairstreaks! So this classic locale came through for me, even if I did approach it by an unconventional route that I would never recommend to anyone whom I actually like.

On May 28 I made my first of three visits to fabled Satus Pass for the year. Butterflies abounded, and I met with five new ones,: Great Arctics, Western Sulphurs, Dreamy Duskywings, lots of Northern Cloudy Wings, and a Great Basin Checker. When I returned on June 14, I would add Northern Checker, and not far west on June 27, Hoffman’s Checker: so I found all three of our Charidryas in the vicinity of Satus Pass, last accomplished by E. J. Newcomer in the ‘sixties. On the middle visit, one Satus streamside hosted 16 species mudding.

Mid-June also held a long-anticipated long day afield with David James. He took me first to the upper reaches of the attenuated, off-and-on watercourse known as Crab Creek, which cuts across much of the Columbia Basin. Not far from Ritzville we visited a tiny perched wetland where John Bauman had found Silver-bordered Fritillaries. There they were, along with Northern Crescents, Garita Skipperlings, and a big, bright Arrowhead Blue. That afternoon, many, many miles southwest at David’s great Monarch site on Lower Crab Creek, there were no monarchs to be seen; but there were the hoped-for Ruddy Coppers on sand dock, another first for me in Washington. After a delightful night with the James Gang and their Vanessid subtribe, the next day I visited Swale Creek at its confluence with the Klickitat River, and on just a few blossoms, found dozens of Sylvan and California Hairstreaks, more than I’ve ever seen in one place. Once again I arrived at Peterson Prairie at the foot of Mt. Adams not long before sunset, now green, barely soon enough to scare up a couple of Mardon Skippers. Like the Jubas of April, they went to roost in high firs.

For one last crack at Johnson’s Hairstreak, I drove to the Wind River Experimental Forest above Carson on June 20. I planned to look for them on the ground beneath the old-growth hemlocks where Thea and I had found eggs among mistletoe, while riding 90 meters high on the canopy crane, during my national Big Year in 2008 (see Mariposa Road). Not much nectar, no such luck. But I did find a tiny Common Roadside Skipper and scads of Pale Tigers on spreading dog- bane near the Wind River Work Camp, and Cedar Hairstreaks above the river.

Next, two rare blues: on my third trip to the South Fork of the Tieton to look for it this year, I finally got a good look at the Enoptes Dotted Blue. Then on my second visit to Vancouver Lake, where Dan Nelson had recently discovered the first Eastern Tailed Blues ever recorded in Western Washington, I found them not uncommon along the weedy dikes. No doubt they’ll spread from there. And with that, my Big Year total stood at 100 species.

After my spring trip to Simcoe Butte west of Satus Pass, I had tried to follow the Boundary Road along the Yakama Reservation to a storied high meadowland known as The Lakebeds, and thence link up with Monument Road down to Goldendale over the Simcoe Mountains. It looked feasible on the map, and a Yakama woodcutter gave me some tips, but sounded doubtful. This led to the second worst road of the year, and to nearly getting stuck in a giant snowbank-and- mudhole where I still might not have been found. So on June 27, after much melting and drying, I tried again from the south. In the end, the road was gated a couple of miles from The Lakebeds. I never got to them, but in trying I did find the thickest concentration of butterflies of the year: 42 species for the trip, a few of them new for the Big Year, such as Queen Alexandra’s Sulphur and Hoffman’s Checkerspot, and thousands of individuals.

Now my time was running down. With the start of July, I set out on a three-week field trip to finish off the year with a bang. David Branch again joined me, as he had at the beginning of the enterprise one year before. Independence Day found us meeting Caitlin LaBar in her long-term study locale of the Sinlahekin Wildlife Area in upper Okanogan County, along with her mentor, Dale Swedberg, retired manager. We found Behr’s Hairstreaks on the bitterbrush and Canadian Tiger Swallowtails, but fire and flood had nixed the hoped-for Pale Crescent habitats, though David valiantly hiked to them anyway. The Long Swamp on Toats Coulee turned out to be late for Freija Fritillaries. Not only that, it was 39 degrees F. and snowing when we arrived! But when David and I went back the next day it was warmer, and we found both Vidler’s and Butler’s (Common) Alpines. It was a true treat to be with Cait in this place she knows so well.

From there David and I went to Slate Peak above Mazama. It was still spring at this famous (and only) drivable arctic-alpine height, and extremely windy, and none of the high- country specialists were present except Anicia Checkers and a lone Arctic Blue; yet David managed to make an astonishing capture on top: a female Coral Hairstreak, an uncommon butterfly of lower ground! Will someone please explain that? The next day in the hot low- lands we found the Common Sootywing at Gallagher Flats near Chelan. We managed to cross the fearsome Colockum Pass on the third worst road of the year, found my first “silver”-form Sylvan Hairstreak, and then David had to head back to the city.

On the seventh, I did the Swakane Canyon portion of the Chumstick Mountain 4JBC and saw 30 species, Hedgerow Hairstreak being new. Then it was east through Waterville to Dry Falls, where I watched a single Yuma Skipper among the sparse great reeds. A passerby spotted it by my feet as we were chatting about an elderberry longhorn he’d seen and was showing me on his phone! By then I’d heard from Cait that she’d found a new (for her) spot for Boloria freija, one of my greatest desiderata, at Lone Frank Pass. So I shot back to Omak, camped near Conconully, hit Lone Frank in the morning, and found Freija! I’d been seeking her in Washington for fifty years. As a bonus, a lone Chryxus Arctic found me up there too.

And then it was time for the Great Northeast! Up to Disautel, the Colville Reservation, and Moses Meadows—my first, long-deferred visit. I was seeking various uncommon skippers, and managed to find one I didn’t expect instead, a Long Dash (or Mystic): possibly an Okanogan county record. It was in a tiny meadow in a riverbend where the reservation meets the national forest. Next day it was Tiger Meadows. Last time there with Thea, we’d found Peck’s (Yellowpatch) Skippers common. I was apparently too late for them this time, but there were lots of a recent resident, European Skipperlings, and a couple of (I believe) Atlantis Fritillaries near the forest edges of the great meadows. Strangely, next day, I found the Pend Oreille Selkirks east of Sullivan Lake very sparse in butterflies. So, having written off some northeast- ern species, with only a few days to go, I shot all the way down the state to the Blue Mountains.

Across the beautiful Chewelah highlands and the parched, heated lowlands I flew in the green Subaru, pausing only for a quick look at Sprague Lake, a long-time study site of Thea’s and mine. Not a lot there: BUT, a single showy milkweed that I reversed for was covered with dark wedges-half a dozen or so bright male Coral Hairstreaks! A real spectacle for this thoroughly unpredictable butterfly. But it was late that afternoon when an even greater spectacle struck. The road ran straight from Sprague to Steptoe, as it left the Channeled Scablands and entered the Palouse on the way to the Blues. So I took a short detour to the summit of Steptoe Butte, that high volcanic plug poking up through the loess prairies, where I’d seen Painted Ladies hilltopping in the past. This time, with the brilliant green-and-gold Palouse spreading its broad checkered apron of wheatfields below and just the narrow hem of natural habitat protected around the Butte, the tip-top was aswirl with hilltoppers: Oregon Swallowtails, Common Wood Nymphs, Western Whites, branded skippers, and very pale little Callippe Fritillaries, among others. When they all went to bed around six, the ladies came out: the first one was the rarest, an American, alighting right beside me on the asphalt. The second, landing right next to it, was the other one I sought, the West Coast-I couldn’t believe my luck. And then in succession came a couple of

Painteds, followed at last by a Red Admirable! By seven o’clock, there were several ladies of each species dashing all around the top, each attempting to court all the others, in a veritable carnival of color and action. This was my first-ever Four Vanessa Day (that’s one more even than in the James household!), including in Hawaii.

Well, of course I went to the Asotin County confluence of the Snake and Grand Ronde rivers, where we’ve been seeking hackberry butterflies for years, and of course I didn’t find them yet again, nor any other novelties, though it was awfully hot. So it was up into the cooler Blues I fled next, via Asotin Creek to Wickiup Campground. On the morning of July 15, I found the Blue Mountains to be better than the Selkirks, but not as rich as they can be; and to my disgruntlement, there wasn’t an Edith’s Copper to be seen anywhere. An old habitat for the Meadow Fritillary seemed utterly unsuitable now. But the bigger frits were well represented, and between Mt. Misery and Diamond Peak, Great Basin Fritillaries were common at wet spots, and I found the only Northwestern Fritillary of the year, one of the unsilvered variety Speyeria hesperis dodgei.

All the way back across the Basin, pothole by clover patch by marshlet, I sought Sandhill Skippers, but they just weren’t to be seen. I was doomed to be forever between generations. And so, all the way back to Slate Peak, for one more go.

Less wind, later conditions, better results: Astarte and Arctic fritillaries, and a mating pair of Spring Whites, right on the summit. On the way down toward Mazama, I paused to revel in one of the whole year’s most memorable visions: some twenty Hoffman’s Checkers puddling in the late sun. Little did I know that a couple of days later a WBA trip would find Arctic Skippers, which had eluded me all year, at Whistler Meadows. I might have gotten there in time myself that afternoon, had I hurried. But that vision was worth it. The numbers, after all, weren’t everything.

But I was still chasing them, nonetheless. Now I had just one day left, and part of another. On the 18th I tried the other side of the North Cascades, the North Fork of the Nooksack, for Oreas Anglewings and Compton Tortoiseshells, without any luck. Then dashed for the shore, the ferry, and the Olympics, for the finish. I had re-defined the beginning of the Big Year as the moment I caught the first specimen of the Variegated Fritillary ever nabbed in Washington, at four in the afternoon of my 70th birthday, July 19, 2017. So I had until that time on my 71st. By two p.m., I had burst out of the clouds and reached the sunny summit of Blue Mountain above Deer Park in Olympic National Park. And there, on the very top, what should appear but what I sought: Hulbirt’s Branded Skipper (Hesperia comma hulbirti), an Olympic en- demic. Then I dropped back down into the cloud, sought a good seafood dinner and a celebratory glass in Port Angeles, and that was that: a year of passionate, all-out play, finis!

In the next column, I will reflect on what I learned from Washington’s first Butterfly Big Year, and offer advice to those who may follow (don’t take that road!). Meanwhile, here are the rough results. Pending examination of my data and vouchers by Jonathan Pelham, my final total seems to be about 127 species out of Washington’s 153 or so, or 83% of the fauna. Next year, David Branch and I are going to try to spot The Ones That Got Away:

E. pacuvius, P. centaureae, H. ericetorum, C. palaemon, P. peckius, P. sabuleti, P.themistocles, N. iole, C. nastes, E. lotta, P. protodice, L. cupreus, L. editha, C. spinetorum, C. johnsoni, B. exilis, E. isola , B. bellona , A. californica, N. lalbum, P. oreas, J. coenia, P. pallida , C. sthenele, and O. melissa.

Look them up, it’s good to learn their names—they’re all out there waiting for us!

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