event duration:
July 2, 2006 organization:
Mount St. Helens Institute address/meet at:
Wakepish snow park cost:
$50 require:
Pre-registration bring:
Lunch, warm clothes, hand lens, binoculars contact name(s):
Greg de Nevers, Mount St. Helens Institute phone:
(360) 449-7826 event webpage:
www.mshinstitute.org more than two weeks adv. notice to register?:
No description:

July 2, with Robert Michael Pyle.  Buckwheats and Blues. 

 

Spend a day with renowned butterfly chaser Robert Michael Pyle looking for two elusive species of butterflies linked to buckwheat plants. Last July Dr. Pyle found the beautiful Blue Copper, an "east-of-the-Cascades" buckwheat specialist, on the abundant naked buckwheat along the road to Windy Ridge.  This was a major range extension westward.  Now he hopes to find the tiny  Enoptes Dotted Blue, another buckwheat specialist, so far found in only a single location in Washington.  We'll look for both species, as well as other early butterflies, as we investigate their response to the changing blast zone, and discuss caterpillar food plant preferences, and other aspects of four-winged biology.

 

Guide:  Robert Michael Pyle, Ph.D., is a freelance biologist, a writer and a life-time student of northwestern butterflies.  His books include: The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies, Chasing Monarchs,  Nabokov’s Butterflies, Walking the High Ridge: life as field trip, Where Bigfoot Walks: crossing the Dark Divide, and Wintergreen: rambles in a ravaged land.