The onset of the covid-19 pandemic in late winter 2019-2020 and the measures taken in response to it led inevitably to difficulties in maintaining our monitoring regime. At the outset it was decided that the UNR contingent (Matt Forister and Chris Halsch) would cover the 5 Sierran sites and I would continue doing the 5 lowland ones. On August 19, 2020 our Gates Canyon site was largely destroyed by wildfire. There were also significant, but much less extensive and destructive, fires at Suisun (June 8) and North Sac (July 7).
2018 was the single worst butterfly year since this project began. It was the only year when butterflies were at a low ebb both in numbers and diversity at BOTH high (SV,CP,DP,LC,WA) and low (RC,NS,WS,GC,SM) sites. Usually wet years are good in the mountains and bad in the Valley, and vice versa for dry years. In 2018 it was bad everywhere. So it should not be surprising if 2019 was a better year.
This is the year the drought was at least put on “pause.” In northern and central California
most stations received record or near-record high precipitation. Recall that the drought years
were consistently good for most Valley butterflies, many of which recovered to levels seen
before the systematic decline that began in the late 90s. But the butterfly seasons at higher
elevations varied from mediocre to awful, with species failing to be recorded in entire years at
most sites.
Conventional wisdom (i.e., mine) holds that the first year of a drought is good for butterflies, and the second is bad. 2014 was the third. 2015 was the fourth—unprecedented in modern California history. I kept up the tempo of site visits, with nearly-identical numbers per site to previous years.
As I said a year ago, conventional (Shapiro) wisdom has it that the first year of a
drought is good for butterflies, but the second is bad. How about the third? 2014
was the third drought year, as was much-discussed in the media. I was able to
maintain the tempo of site visits, despite a serious accident on Sept.11 that had me
in the hospital for 3 days, and knees that are increasingly unforgiving on Castle
Peak.
Before Congress outlawed the practice, academics were forced to retire at age 65. That’s how UC Davis acquired Theodosius Dobzhansky; his previous institution sent him packing despite his being the greatest living evolutionary geneticist. Now old coots like me – I’ll be 68 in January 2014 – can stay around until infirmity or senility finally kicks in.
In a functional classroom in a functional building on the UC Davis campus, Arthur Shapiro sits unassumingly in the corner. Rumpled, wearing well-worn Converse All Star tennis shoes, old jeans and a faded, zippered green hoodie, Shapiro could be just another student, except for his weathered face and bushy gray beard.
Update: During the week of April 11, 5 more migrating Painted Ladies have been observed at various locations, all going N. There thus appears to be a migration afoot, but a minimal one!
Update: On March 12, 2011 at 11:54 AM, a Painted Lady in migratory mode, flying rapidly from SE to NW about 6' off the ground, was observed at Suisun City, Solano County--the first record this year known to me. It was small and pale, of the migratory desert phenotype.
The "outbreak" of Western Tiger Swallowtails has continued for a second year. Elevated populations are reported at least as far east as Reno and as far west as Fairfield and Vallejo. The "epicenter" seems to be in Davis, however, where it has been on the wing every week since the last week of March, with no clear break between generations (very unusual), and at times in certain neighborhoods (e.g., College Park) one could see 5 or 6 individuals at one time.
