Oregon and Washington Butterfly Photos - Brush-footed Butterflies
by Will Cook
Here's a selection of images from a trip to the Portland, Oregon area, July 29-August 9, 2006. I ranged as far as Mt. St. Helens (Washington), Bend, and the NW Oregon coast (which was lacking in butterflies). Locals say that 2006 was a very poor year for butterfly numbers, and I believe them, though I still saw plenty of cool stuff. I also found a couple of odonates, too, which are appended at the end of the Skippers page. All photos were taken using a Nikon CoolPix 8800, the majority with a Nikon 4T close-up lens attached. The camera settings are encoded in the EXIF data in each jpg image, readable with image browsing programs such as the free one I recommend, FastStone. Identification help is appreciated!
Swallowtails and Whites | Coppers | Hairstreaks | Blues | Nymphalids | Skippers
Nymphalidae - Brush-footed Butterflies
Heliconiinae - Heliconians and Fritillaries
| Leto Fritillary (Speyeria leto), female Often considered to be a subspecies of the Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele leto). Females are quite different from the eastern US version of Great Spangled Fritillary. The eastern and western populations were lumped because they intergrade where their ranges meet. |
| Hydaspe Fritillary (Speyeria hydaspe) |
| Hydaspe Fritillary (Speyeria hydaspe) |
| Hydaspe Fritillary (Speyeria hydaspe)?? |
| Hydaspe Fritillary (Speyeria hydaspe)?? Looks like something took a big bite out of the wing! |
| Hydaspe Fritillary (Speyeria hydaspe)?? |
| Western Meadow Fritillary (Boloria epithore) Also known as the Pacific Fritillary. |
Nymphalinae - True Brushfoots
| Hoffmann's Checkerspot (Chlosyne hoffmanni) Netted (more on that below). |
| Field Crescent (Phyciodes pulchellus owimba) Also known as P. campestris. The underside of the antennal clubs in this subspecies are orange, as you can see here, but are black in the other subspecies. |
| Mylitta Crescent (Phyciodes mylitta) |
| Variable Checkerspot (Euphydryas chalcedona) |
| Variable Checkerspot (Euphydryas chalcedona) See my page on Variable Checkerspot (Euphydryas chalcedona) for more photos. |
| Hoary Comma (Polygonia gracilis) |
| Hoary Comma (Polygonia gracilis) |
| Hoary Comma (Polygonia gracilis) |
| Green Comma (Polygonia faunus) |
| Green Comma (Polygonia faunus) Same individual as below. |
| Green Comma (Polygonia faunus) The lichen-green bands on the underside of the wings are just amazing. Green Comma was high on my want-to-see list. I've looked for them unsuccessfully for years in North Carolina, where they're very rare. |
| California Tortoiseshell (Nymphalis californica) A fresh California Tortoiseshell rivals the spectacular Green Comma for beauty. The first one you see is just amazing. Then you see another, then another, then another dozen, then a hundred. After a while you can get jaded to their beauty. In boom years, it's by far the most common butterfly in the area. I saw more than 10 times as many as the next most abundant species. |
| California Tortoiseshell (Nymphalis californica) See my California Tortoiseshell (Nymphalis californica) page for many more photos. |
Limenitidinae - Admirals and Relatives
| Lorquin's Admiral (Limenitis lorquini) |
| Lorquin's Admiral (Limenitis lorquini) We found this beautiful and fresh, but unfortunate, individual on the pavement in the highway median. Though still alive, it had apparently been struck by a vehicle and its abdomen was crushed. We posed it here on Dave McNeese's butterfly net, before he added it to his collection. |
| A quick detour... This was my first trip ever with a butterfly collector. Dave McNeese, who has been collecting butterflies since he was a kid, invited me to come along on a trip to Mount Hood on August 7. Here's Dave McNeese with two able assistants, his stepdaughters Katie (right) and Alyssa -- all three are very enthusiastic butterfly net swingers! It was a lot of fun, though quite different from my trips with watchers or photographers, since there seemed to be three nets swinging at all times. I may have missed a few shots when a net came whomping down on my target, but they missed netting a few by patiently waiting for me to take a photo. I only photographed one butterfly after it'd been netted (the Hoffman's Checkerspot), but a few of them, such as the Lorquin's above and a Mariposa Copper, ended up in little glassine envelopes soon after I took their photo. |
Satyrinae - Satyrs
| Common Ringlet (Coenonympha tullia) |
| Common Ringlet (Coenonympha tullia) |
| Common Wood-Nymph (Cercyonis pegala) The ones in Oregon look so different from the Common Wood-Nymph in North Carolina that they're almost unrecognizable. |
| Small Wood-Nymph (Cercyonis oetus) ID by Jonathan Pelham. |
| Small Wood-Nymph (Cercyonis oetus) Also known as the Dark Wood-Nymph. |
| Great Arctic (Oeneis nevadensis) |
| Great Arctic (Oeneis nevadensis) |
Swallowtails and Whites | Coppers | Hairstreaks | Blues | Nymphalids | Skippers
Comments? Questions? E-mail me at cwcook@duke.edu