Incisalia mossii

[Jeff & Patricia Harding]

  In the two weeks of spectacular weather that preceeded last week's rain
here in western Oregon, Dan Thackaberry and I found several new locations
for Moss' elfin, I. mosii in Linn County. It seemed to be flying at the base
of every rocky cliff we found.  Earlier Dan found it in Marion County,
probably a county record.  Why is this so easy to find this year?  Is it a
good year, or are we just lucky?

   The weather was very nice.  On the 19th of May we drove up the Calapooya
River to explore some townships without butterfly records in Hincliff's
Atlas of Oregon Butterflies.  We found mossii flying with brown elfins (I.
augustinus) at about 300 Meters, and flying with Faun and Zephyr anglewings
(Polygonia faunus and P. zephyrus) at about 1400 meters, where the road was
blocked by a snowbank in a north facing slope.  We may have found it again
at about 700 meters in the drainage of the South Santiam at Canyon Creek,
but the individual was quite faded, so that identification was a problem.
We let it go.  The day was so fine there were butterflies on the wing at
7:00pm on the south-facing cliffs above Canyon Creek, including
silver-spotted skippers, (Epargyreus clarus) and two-banded checkered
skippers (Pyrgus ruralis - a grizzled skipper to old world types).

  The week before we took a quick afternoon trip up Wiley Creek near Sweet
Home, and found mossii along with some twenty other species of butterflies
in a two mile stretch of logging road.

Cheers,  Jeff
      
Jeff and Patricia Harding	
Jeff does the butterflies and birds
Patricia does the orchids

Lebanon, Oregon, USA