"Butterflies of Cascadia" is a fascinating page-turner, with endless photographs, several each of the almost-200 known species of butterflies inhabiting a part of the Northwest.that Pyle defines as Cascadia -- all of Oregon and Washington with adjacent portions of British Columbia, Idaho, Nevada and California.  A map limns its eco-geological make-up -- mountains and canyons, low-lands, high desert, river drainages, lava fields, lush valleys and coastal regions.  

For each butterfly, there is an individual map shaded to indicate its general habitat and range.  And for each butterfly, the scientific and common names (usually more than one), a detailed description of the stages of  metamorphosis, the life-spans, host and nectaring plants, and their "on the wing" seasons.  For butterflies very similar in appearance, Pyle often shows them side-by-side, making the differences more readily apparent. There are five families of butterflies in North America, and all five are found in Cascadia.
  
Often, when you see one species, another one, unrelated, will be showing in the same area at the same time, as with the Silvery Blues and Sarah's Orangetips, flying in the early spring.  They both range throughout Cascadia except in the wettest deep forests and a narrow band of the coast. The blues are a large family of tiny butterflies, and one new species was discovered only seven years ago in the Mazama Ash Fields east of Crater Lake -- the Leona's Little Blue -- not found elsewhere in Cascadia. Pyle says that the Little Blue's "range remains to be filled in by additional field work," and that "perhaps still more endemic ash field butterflies are out there to be found."
  
A good knowledge of Cascadia's botany --  where certain trees, plants and flowers are normally to be found -- is useful in identifying butterflies. Some are adaptable to a  variety of  flora while others are strictly linked with their host plants. In that category are the Golden Hairstreaks,  found only in golden chinquapin oak groves, or in single, dispersed trees. "While adults spend most of their time among the foliage of the trees, they are conspicuous because of their size and color and come down to nectar late in the day."
  
Pyle says: "If you visit a large alfalfa or red clover field in mid-summer, you may see thousands of orange and yellow sulphurs dancing over the sweet purple blooms, nectaring, courting, spiralling, rejecting, and oviposting."  These butterflies "furnish pollination service farmers usually pay for by renting bees."  The large Orange Sulphur (or, alfalfa butterfly) is found throughout Oregon from March through November.  Sulphurs are unusual in that under ultraviolet light, they fluoresce!
  
The Two-Tailed Swallowtail is a startlingly be-jeweled butterfly, the second-largest in North America.  "For such a grand butterfly, it is also common, gracing city streets from Kelowna to Guadalajara....it is tireless, it seems never to stop to feed or to rest, but is always in rapid flight....you will watch for it in vain on the rainy side of the mountain."
  
In 1979, the Oregon Swallowtail was named the official Oregon insect, the same year its picture appeared on a U.S. postage stamp.  "Oregonia is a crisp, sharply marked denizen of the wind....utterly devoid of leisure."   This butterfly prefers canyons and slopes in the interior where its host plants, dragon wormwood and tarragon, grow, and also "the cliffs, plateaus, and mountains above."
  
Pyle exclaims, "who has not tried to dodge swallowtails while crossing Cascade passes in June!"  Frequently, several species can be seen mudpuddling together, often a combination of the Pale, Western and Two-Tailed Tigers, Indra and Anise Swallowtails.  It is the males who mob together on mud or roadside rain puddles or animal scat. They are seeking specific minerals in organic matter which is needed to replenish their reservoirs of pheronomes.  Butterflies are the most highly sexually differentiated of all insects. 
  
The Clodius Parnassian, found in western Oregon, and the northeastern corner, from sea-level to 7,000 feet, "is one of the most conspicuous and common butterflies in the Northwest summer countryside, wherever bleeding hearts grow."  Pyle says the name was "inspired by Clodius and his sister Clodia, less-than-admirable Roman citizens whose only virtue was such  beauty that they were surnamed Pulcher."
 
Fritillaries are fast-flying, mid-sized butterflies, living longer than most and wearing out in the process. In the spring, the Callippe Fritillary shows its beautiful green scaling strong and fresh, but late in the season they are bleached-out and pale.  Most of the greater fritillaries (there are also lesser fritillaries) are shades of orange and yellow, but all have surprisingly metallic silvery orbs on the lower side of their wings, which give them their other name -- Silverspots.  If you see fritillaries, there will be violets nearby.  And if you plant violets in your garden, you may soon have visiting Silverspots!
  
The loveliest of butterflies is the American Lady, common in Cascadia only at Sherar's Bridge on the Deschutes River, though it ranges elsewhere in Oregon.  A most unusual butterfly in appearance is the California Tortoiseshell (or Western Tortoise Shell).  Pyle says: "This enigmatic butterfly builds up its numbers for years until it bursts out in phenomenal mass movements.  In such years the mountain balm and deerbrush are defoliated over wide areas....they become the most abundant butterflies along the mountain streams.  Then the numbers crash, and scarcely a tortoiseshell will be seen in the entire region for the next several years."
  
Many of the species of butterflies, we learn, are annual migraters into Cascadia; others "over-winter," hibernating in one of their stages -- as eggs, pupae or adults.  Hibernating adults occasionally make startling, brief appearances in the middle of winter!
 
"The Butterflies of Cascadia" is even more than a book of astonishing photographs of creatures who have inspired poets for centuries; it is more than a journal of scientific names and descriptions, though these are important and Pyle includes an index explaining the terminology.  There are diagrams of the butterfly's anatomy, explanations of its physiology,  such as how color is imparted to the wings, and a description of metamorphosis.
  
The book is a catalog of every known species of butterflies gracing our corner of the earth. In addition, Pyle describes activities we can enjoy while adding to the general knowledge about butterflies -- making exact notes about the locations of observations, photographing, and taking specimens. He suggests books for further study, and lists local organizations, such as the Northwest Lepidopterists' Association, which holds its annual meeting every fall  in Corvallis, Oregon. There is discussion about environmental threats to butterflies and ways in which we can help address these issues.
  
This is a book to gladden the heart throughout the year, to keep handy for browsing. Wing colors and patterns, size, and flight characteristics will become familiar in the imagination. Some species are already  "on the wing", and when you are out walking, jogging, birding, or working in your garden, you will note that flash of color and think:  "I know who you are!"
  
                                                 -- Peggy Whitcomb
 
(OMED: Here is some text from the Powell's Books order page related to this work:  In 1979, Pyle moved from Portland, Oregon to the rural community of Gray's River on a tributary of the lower Columbia (river) in far southwest Washington.  It was a deliberate migration, in the Thoreauvian sense, toward the requisite setting for confronting life's bare essentials and to see what effect that may have on the creative act of writing.  As Michael Peraons has commented: "For a man trained in natural history, science and conservation, much more than in literature, the transformation from scientist into full-time writer was a daring step into terra incognita, a metamorphosis reminiscent of the bitterflies he studies."

Original text © 2003 Peggy Whitcomb