Throughout the year of 2008, the noted lepidopterist and writer Robert M. Pyle will be undertaking a historic journey to find, experience, and identify as many of the approximately 800 species of butterflies as possible in the United States and Canada. The literary fruits of this project will be published by the Houghton Mifflin Company as a book entitled Swallowtail Seasons: The First Butterfly Big Year. You have the opportunity to take part in this effort by making a pledge for every butterfly species that Robert Pyle encounters, as part of the 2008 Butterfly-A-Thon. All proceeds from the Butterfly-A-Thon will benefit Xerces Society's projects in rare butterfly conservation.

Bob Pyle's notes from the road

Entry 7 - April 19, 2008
Entry 6 - March 28, 2008
Entry 5 - March 17, 2008
Entry 4 - February 27, 2008
Entry 3 - January 31, 2008
Entry 2 - January 11, 2008
Entry 1 - December 20, 2007

Read Bob Pyle's blog for Orion Magazine

Entry 7
April 19, 2008

Entry 6
March 28, 2008

Entry 5
March 17, 2008

Entry 4
February 27, 2008

Bob Pyle and his net (Marsha) at Ellwood Mesa next to Ellwood Main Monarch Grove
and Coronado Butterfly Preserve, Goleta CA. Photo by Debra Piot, taken Jan 19, 2008.

Entry 2
January 11, 2008

Entry 1
December 20, 2007

Dear Friends,

Welcome to my journey.  This may be the only report all year that I actually type, as I have not yet departed and still have access to e-mail. Throughout 2008, I will be off-line and dispatching reports by hand, from various rural mailboxes around the land.

I see the plan of my year, such as it is, as being something like half of a daisy. The disk flowers are centered on Gray's River, Washington, near the mouth of the Columbia River, where I live. (This is the area I wrote about in my recent book, Sky Time in Gray's River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place, Houghton Mifflin, 2007.) The ray flowers represent my excursions out and back, of which there will be several during the year.  I will travel primarily by automobile--my 1982 Honda Civic (Powdermilk), starting out with 354,000 miles on the odometer.  At this point, the only flights I intend to take will be to Alaska in midsummer and Hawaii at the end of the year, to wrap things up with the few (2) but beautiful Hawaiian endemics. Somewhere in the middle, I anticipate a long figure eight of an Amtrak trip.

My objective, as you know, is to encounter as many of the 800 species of North American butterflies north of Mexico (based on the new Pelham Catalog) as I possibly can in the year 2008. I don't intend to merely tick them off, but to indulge in deep and revealing encounters with the butterflies, their habitats, and the landscapes and people and stories that make up their whole continental context. Of course I'll be looking at the state of habitats and how traditional ranges are responding to climate change. It is these stories and perceptions and findings that will make up the pith of Swallowtail Seasons.

Many have asked if I will be taking pictures. I will not. Butterfly photography has come a vast distance since my Watching Washington Butterflies (1974), in which color photos of wild butterflies were first used in a field guide. But I have not come along with it! I will be working in word-pictures, which are my stock-in-trade. In this way, and insofar as it will be a Big Road Trip and a heck of a field outing, Swallowtail Seasons will resemble Chasing Monarchs (2000). But whereas that foray involved seeking one species in one general direction over three months, this one will address hundreds of species, every which way, for an entire year. I can't yet quite comprehend, much less express, what an immense privilege this opportunity represents. And what a challenge.

Spontaneity will be the watch-word, as I'll need to adapt to weather, fickle flight periods, information flashes, and many other variables. Thus I will make very few dates, commitments, or engagements, though I look forward to visiting and going afield with many old and new friends during the year. So be forewarned--you might get a call when I'm in your neighborhood! The same goes for my own "flight plans." While I will have an extremely general outline of movements, I'll need to be able to divert, detour, and digress, to shuck and jive, to pull a U-ey or hang a left at the flash of a wing or the rise of a cloud. Therefore, any prediction of when I will be where will be unreliable by definition. In rough terms, however, I will be orienting my travels around a number of "grail butterflies"--a dozen or maybe a score of species that I have always wanted to see, but which have so far eluded me--such as the short-tailed swallowtail of the Maritimes, the yellow Eversmann's parnassian of the Far North, the Atala of southern Florida, or Behr's sulphur of the High Sierra. The localities and flight periods of these will dictate many of my movements, and I will hope to pick up many of the other species along the way as I seek these special endemics.

So to start I shall head south down the Pacific Coast into the New Year. I intend to begin with the overwintering monarchs of the central California coast. A few other species fly year-round or at least very early in the year from the Bay Area southward. I will be looking out for West Coast ladies, gulf fritillaries, buckeyes, and cabbage whites in the early days, as well as some of the first spring emergents such as margined whites, echo azures, and western pine elfins. The farther south I get, the more species should be peeking out, including some early orange-tips and sulphurs. Spring rains and wildflowers in the desert will dictate many of my initial results. Before I return north from the first outing, I hope to find the precocious advance-guard of arguably one of the most beautiful of North American butterflies, the sonora blue. It shimmers with a truly empyrean blue, both the fore- and hindwings splashed with fire-engine orange. I have seen it only once, on a Super Bowl Sunday in San Jose.

Until the next word then, from the field,

Bob

The Washington Butterfly Association buys Bob Pyle a symbolic first tank of gas for the grand adventure at Bob's local shop, the Rosburg Store, in Gray's River Valley. From left to right: Butterfly Association members Al Wagar, David Droppers and Bob Pyle.