Mariposa Road by Robert Michael Pyle
Author:Robert Michael Pyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HMH Books
2
Fandango
The 2008 Pacific Slope Section meeting of the Lepidopteristsâ Society got under way at nine on Saturday, July 12, in Alturas, California. Iâve belonged to the society since 1959, and I wasnât going to make the national meeting in Mississippi this year (been there . . .), but I hate to miss the small, intimate Pacific Slope gatherings. Most of the attendees were old friends, some for forty years. Though Iâd been in town but seven hours, I got there on time, so Jerry Powell couldnât make a crack. Several of the folks whoâd already helped me, including Liam OâBrien from the green hairstreak walk in San Francisco, gave talks.
When it came time for my own contribution, a ramble on the Big Year to date, I was able to report some 280 species more than the handful I had when Iâd met with much the same group at Berkeley in February. Later, Jerry told me that he hadnât expected me to pursue this year with so much energy. That meant a lot to me, because Jerry is one of bluntest, most honest people I know. I doubt a word of false praise has ever passed his lips, which always seem to waver between a frown for fools and a hearty laugh. Jerry was my first editor, when I submitted callow pieces to the societyâs journal in the sixties, and he has been the godfather of the Pacific Slope Branch for many years.
For the field trip to Cedar Pass in the nearby Warner Mountains, I rode with my old friend John Lane, donor of the Mendocino monarch tips. We saw a good many species, though none new. Ben Warner blues, the subspecies of Annaâs named from here, were the color of the California sky that summer: clear blue with a hint of white smoke. The next day I returned to the Warners on my own. I was checking roadside buckwheat, having just found my first California hairstreak, when a car stopped. It was Paul Opler and his wife, Evi Buckner, who had spotted Marsha in action. Paul wrote the eastern and western Peterson Field Guides for butterflies. He and I have collaborated on butterfly conservation for many years, and I leap at any chance to be in the field with him. Paul and Evi led me on a long, dusty road to a site for Lindseyâs skipper. We quickly found females of Hesperia lindseyi on thistles, and they went on their way, Montana-bound.
I watched the handsome gold and silver skipper for some time. Then, backtracking along the road on which weâd come, over Lassen Creek, I drove through clouds of snowberry checkerspots, all over the yarrow and even on St. Johnâs wort, which almost nothing ever visits. Buckwheat was plastered with two homonymic hairstreaks, S. behrii and C. g. barryi. Among them, but far fewer, showed two exciting coppers. The tailed copper is the only one besides Hermes to sport little tails on its hindwings, but larger, and its swirly pattern is unique.
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