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| 7/22/2009 6:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Butterfly fans catalog colorful insects at Lone Mesa State Park
Kristen Plank
Journal Staff Writer
There is a subtle art to stalking and catching butterflies, and Carol Bylsma is a connoisseur at capturing the colorful insects.
Bylsma and three other volunteers spent Saturday traipsing across Lone Mesa State Park for the area's first butterfly count. The state park, located on 12,000 acres roughly 25 miles north Dolores, is in the biological surveying stage of its development and is only open for hunting season.
The four volunteers counted butterflies both for the Colorado Natural Heritage Program, for surveying purposes, and for the North American Butterfly Association, which is similar in nature to the National Audubon Society's Christmas bird count. Bylsma has been volunteering for the park since early summer.
"I have a background in natural history and field biology, so I'm doing a population survey of butterflies," Bylsma said. "Right now, for Lone Mesa, I'm just trying to find out who lives where. Next year we'll follow stricter field protocol for monitoring certain populations over time."
The importance of starting such a count goes beyond gallivanting in a field full of butterflies, like one might have done as a child.
"Butterflies are a keystone species," Bylsma said. "They let you know the health of an ecosystem. They are easy to spot, you don't need to know their sounds, and you can quickly tell if certain species are in the area.
"If there is nothing flying and there are beautiful flowers around, then that says something."
Volunteers surveyed a 3-mile radius not too far from the park's entrance, at an elevation of 7,000 to 8,000 feet. The three women helping Bylsma came for a variety of reasons. Linda Honeycutt, of Yellow Jacket, grows a butterfly garden at home and enjoys photographing the colorful creatures, while her friend Pat Hancock, of Dove Creek, came along for something fun to do.
"I just wanted a new challenge," said Cortez resident Judith Franklin, another retired field biologist.
Part of the challenge was netting the butterflies, which flitted up, down and all around as the women tried capturing the insects in flight or on a flower. Open fields where wildflowers were plentiful allowed for a higher capture rate. Butterflies were released after being identified.
At the end of an entire day chasing down the butterflies, Bylsma identified 21 different species and counted at least 135 butterflies. A wide variety of species were found, from Boisduval's blue and wood nymphs to bright yellow swallowtails and alfalfa sulfurs.
But the "shining star" of the day was the newly-emerged brown elfin butterfly, a small, brown butterfly with a dusting of iridescent green at the base of its wings. Carol said the elfin butterfly, along with a few others, was not on the list of potential butterflies found in Dolores County. The list is compiled by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Bylsma was only disappointed in not finding any Colorado hairstreaks, the official state insect whose wings, when open, are a bright purple. The butterfly's host plant is Gambel oak, but the volunteers could not positively identify any Saturday.
"At this time of year I expected there to be clouds of them," she said. "I'm wondering if the cold weather in June has delayed their emergence."
Bylsma has been spending one day a week at the park, cataloging and identifying butterflies. She will continue doing so until the first frost of the season. The data from Saturday will be given to the North American Butterfly Association.
"You will eventually be able to look at the general trends," Bylsma said. "A lot of graduate students have used this information. It's not only fun, but it's also important."
Reach Kristen Plank at kristenp@cortezjournal.com.
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