Cascades Butterfly Project seeks butterflies, volunteers

On August 2nd, I had the privilege of getting out of the office for a day of Citizen Science with five intrepid volunteers on a gorgeous day hiking out of Sunrise. Here's a couple of photos from our day of collecting butterflies, in pursuit of data for tracking population changes over time related to climate:



The trip was led by Michelle Toshack, who submitted the following report. Note that the Cascades Butterfly Project is still looking for more volunteers! More information can be found on their Yahoo group.

What a great trip to Mount Rainier! Wildflowers were blooming beautifully (at Naches Loop and Berkeley Park anyway) and butterflies were truly on the wing. Thank you to the ten excellent volunteers who helped with the project. We saw the following butterflies:


Milbert's Tortoiseshell
Anna's Blue
Silvery Blue
Boisduval's Blue
Edith's Checkerspot
Northern Checkerspot
Clodius Parnassian
Arctic Fritillary


As a reminder, Melanie Weiss (volunteer field lead) will be at Sunrise (Berkeley Park) on August 17th and is looking for volunteers to accompany her. Please email me at michelle_toshack [at] nps.gov if interested. There will be one more chance to volunteer at Mt. Rainier from August 27-30.