The newly-coined "common name" Rural Skipper is very unfortunate since there is a skipper "really-named" ruralis - Pyrgus ruralis. And it's in our fauna. The Farmer is intolerant of civilization. It is common to abundant in rocky foothill canyons. At mid-elevation (Washington, Lang) it occurs in dry, rocky sites, often with Goldencup Oak and Coyotemint. It does not venture above 5000'.

Recorded from all sites; very common except at Castle Peak, where it may be only a stray. This skipper is only slightly less intolerant of civilization than O. agricola, but it occurs in a vast array of habitats, including chaparral, riparian woodland, montane coniferous forest and shrub-steppe. It flies in the second half of the season, beginning just when O. agricola ends. At low elevation it appears to have two back-to-back broods, flying from late June or early July through October. At washington and above it has only one.

A very distinctive, large, lightly-marked skipper found disjunctly in the southern Great Basin and southwest deserts and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Suisun Marsh. Rare strays have turned up elsewhere; this is an extremely strong flier. The odd distribution has led to speculation that the Delta-Suisun populations may have been introduced. The oldest record seems to be from near Modesto in 1938. But there has been so little collecting in the Central Valley that that fact is not, in itself, particularly surprising.