Butterfly Quest

If a birdwatcher can have a 'big year,' why not a lepidopterist?

By HARRY ZIRLIN

He catches his butterfly quarry with a homemade net that he calls Marsha. He crosses the country from one butterfly hot spot to the next in a 1982 Honda Civic he has dubbed Powdermilk. He is Robert Michael Pyle, lepidopterist, naturalist, conservationist and writer who knows the taxonomy and biogeographical distribution of the nation's pale ales and lagers as well as he knows North America's butterfly fauna. 


In "Mariposa Road," Mr. Pyle recounts his attempt in 2008 to see as many of the 800 butterfly species in the United States as possible in one calendar year. Set against the broad backdrop of the 2008 presidential campaign—when politicians were crisscrossing his path in pursuit of fluttery voters—and the more intimate focus of a family health crisis, the book stitches together keenly observed moments in the lives of butterflies, birds, plants and the people who care about them. Along the way, Mr. Pyle also captures the loneliness and zaniness of his single-minded quest—sleeping in his car in Wal-Mart parking lots, hunting butterfly eggs in a freezing Wisconsin cranberry bog in November and getting lost in Nogales, Ariz., while looking for Mexican food.

Readers familiar with Mr. Pyle's "Chasing Monarchs" (1999) will recognize his enviro-gonzo approach to stalking butterflies. In the 1969, he graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor of science degree in Nature Perception and Protection (hey, it was the '60s) and in 1971 founded the Xerces Society, with the conservation of butterflies and other invertebrates as its mission. He eventually headed to Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where he received a doctorate degree in 1976, but by then he had already established himself as a leading proponent of observing butterflies and identifying them, not catching, killing and pinning them and then figuring out what they are. His book "Watching Washington Butterflies" (1973) presented a revolutionary alternative to the dead-and-spread school of butterfly identification.

Bird-watchers talk about undertaking a "big year" of identifying as many bird species as possible during a calendar year; Mr. Pyle adapted the idea for butterfly-spotting. He figured that if he concentrated on searching for rare "grail" species, as he calls them, he'd encounter plenty of more common ones along the way. At the core of his quest are these rarities—the Eversmann's Parnassian he sought along the Dalton Highway, for instance, and the Bartram's Hairstreak he finds on Big Pine Key in Florida.

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What's Wrong with Schmetterling?: Old World Swallowtail (Papilio machaon)

Mariposa Road

By Robert Michael Pyle

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 558 pages, $27

It's a pleasure to read his descriptions of the subtle differences between, say, the orange hind-wing bands on a butterfly like the Martial's Hairstreak and those on his much-coveted Bartram's Hairstreak. (The two species are distressingly similar and they fly together in the Florida Keys.) The Martial's shade of orange, he says, "looked like frozen concentrate, compared to the fresh-squeezed of Bartram's."

Although Mr. Pyle sees himself primarily as a butterfly watcher, under some circumstances he still collects a few specimens either to confirm their identities or to place in museum collections. He understands that killing butterflies is anathema to other butterfly watchers, the vast majority of whom do not even carry nets (let alone nets named Marsha). But somehow Mr. Pyle, with his bushy gray beard and long history in the butterfly game, is accorded plenty of respect both by specimen-collecting lepidopterists and the look-but-don't-touch crowd.

When in Fairbanks, he travels with Kenelm Philip, the dean of Alaskan collectors and the possessor of thousands of immaculately curated specimens in glass-topped cabinet drawers. When in Florida, Mr. Pyle goes butterfly-spying with Alana Edwards, the state's unofficial butterfly queen, who would be loathe to so much as startle a butterfly, let alone kill one.

Of course, not everyone Mr. Pyle meets out on the road shares his interest in the lepidopterous fauna. The police occasionally wanted to know what he was doing, tramping through underbrush and carrying a net on a stick. But most of his encounters with the constabulary or private landowners—angered that Mr. Pyle hopped their fences—turn benign after a few minutes of explanation. The author, by the way, sums up his attitude toward "No Trespassing" signs by quoting Woody Guthrie's line: "But on the other side, it didn't say nothing, that side was made for you and me."

So how big was his big year? Mr. Pyle's "challenging but not unreasonable" goal was to see 500 of the 800 American butterfly species. "Some of my friends and colleagues avowed that they'd be surprised and delighted" if he hit 400. Final total: 478. Some other statistics he provides in an appendix: "Miles Powermilk driven: 32,544" (odometer total 387,034); "Miles by air: 37,616"; "Miles by boat: 122"; "Overall expenditure: $16,132"; "Carbon cost per species: don't ask."

For the seemingly ever-growing number of Americans who are just beginning to watch, photograph and keep life-lists of butterflies, this book will be a revelation of how deep this passion can run. Butterfly aficionados may want to read "Mariposa Road" twice. Once just to enjoy Mr. Pyle's rollicking prose and once with Hi-Liter in hand, noting where he found those species that have been eluding them. Amblyscirtes alternata on Riverside Island in Ocala National Forest in March, eh?