Yosemite Butterfly Count/Saddlebag Lake

I'd been asked a few month's back if I'd be one of the leaders in the 2nd Annual Yosemite Butterfly Count. Hard to imagine this great National Park is only recently celebrating the presence of these creatures and even harder to imagine considering it is home to one of the great American Butterfly stories.
Colias behri - called by both the common names Behr's or Sierran Sulfur -
was a prized addition to every University during the golden era of Victorian collecting. The way one would obtain this California endemic species -
(and I may have some of the facts janky here - was to leave money in an envelope on a certain tree above the town of Lee Vining and there was a miner who made a great living by supplying educational facilities with specimens of this little green sulfur. Long before a National Park came about there.
Then in 1937 something happened: the Tioga Pass was cut and a place called Saddlebag Lake became accessible to the world. The type locality for this creature is "Yosemite Valley" but the best place to see it known amongst lepidopterist is Saddlebag Lake. I'd seen it there before.
The walk about this place on the Count revealed for me two other lifers -
The Rockslide Checkerspot ( Chlosyne whitneyii) and the American Copper
(Lycaena phlaeas). I was incredible lucky to see these both here this day because they are known to be higher altitude species.
And if THAT wasn't good enough - my first aberrant in-the-field. The underside, mutated markings of this Edith's Copper were CRAZY cool>
Saddlebag Lake - one of the top five destinations for any California Butterfly enthusiast. ( Oh, and the plant life rocked as well...)

Posted on August 1, 2013 12:12 AM by