Transported by Winged Beauty
When Wanda Dameron plants her garden, she doesn’t just think about color, scent, hardiness and height.
Above all, she thinks about what will draw butterflies into her West Hills backyard, which is why she grows passion vine and buddleia, or butterfly bush.
Dameron is one of a burgeoning number of butterfliers nationwide, people who happily spend their leisure time seeking beautiful winged insects.
Like many others, she was previously an avid birder, chasing elusive warblers and other rare species, enthusiastically adding each new sighting to her growing life list.
But about eight years ago, Dameron was getting a divorce and found she couldn’t afford the international trips that attract birders of means and her level of expertise.
Fortunately, Dameron discovered a glorious, less costly alternative, thanks to a birding friend who had moved to Glendora, where there is an out-of-the-way canyon alive with butterflies.
“It changed my life,” says Dameron, who now runs Flutterby Press, a small publisher of butterfly checklists, wall charts and other aids for people who share her passion.
She is also the author of “Searching for Butterflies in Southern California,” a guide to butterfly hot spots that she intends to update once taxonomists settle on standardized names for various species.
Like birding, butterflying introduces practitioners to a world that is all around us but most of us never see.
Dameron is now aware not only of the colors and sheens of various species, but also of how they move.
“Like people, butterflies have different gaits,” she explains. “Some have very fluttery flights. Some do what some birds do--a float, and then a flap flap. Some have jerky flights.”
Dameron is active in the Los Angeles Chapter of the North American Butterfly Assn., the Audubon Society of the butterfly world, with a membership of about 4,000. Among the association’s activities is an annual butterfly count on the Fourth of July, comparable to Audubon’s venerable Christmas bird count.
Spotting Monarchs in Backyard
Summer is the height of butterfly season, although Southern Californians are fortunate to have some species all year long. These days, Dameron is thrilled when she spots a monarch in the backyard.
Jeffrey Glassberg, who founded New Jersey-based North American Butterfly Assn. in 1993, points out that surveys regularly show that butterflies are the type of wildlife people most want to have near their homes.
It’s no shock that people would rather live among butterflies than, say, possums, but, even among creatures that are easy to love, butterflies have an extraordinary catalog of virtues.
“They don’t bite,” Glassberg says. “They don’t sting. They don’t carry any diseases. They’re beautiful, and they’re associated with concepts like freedom and the human soul.”
Conventional wisdom has it that one reason more and more birders are becoming butterfliers is that they already have expensive binoculars. In fact, Dameron says, “most good bird glasses don’t work for butterflies. Most don’t focus closer than 10 feet and you need to be able to focus at 4 feet for butterflies.”
One of the wonders of butterflying is that you can almost become one of the flock in a gathering of butterflies, something you can’t do with birds and that you wouldn’t want to do if you remember what happened to poor Tippi Hedren in Bodega Bay. Butterflies are approachable.
“You need to find nectaring plants,” Dameron says. “Then you can get in close.”
The social side of butterflying is one aspect that appeals to Dameron. Butterfliers tend to be outdoors people, she says, who don’t smoke and are quick to embrace other people who know the difference between a Callippe fritillary and a Mormon fritillary when they spot one flapping among the violets. Virtually to a person, butterfliers are united in their concern about the loss of butterfly habitat to development, especially worrisome because some butterflies never fly more than 50 feet from where they hatch.
Dameron estimates that there are only 200 people doing serious research on butterflies nationwide, and, instead of disdaining the well-informed amateur, “they just welcome us with open arms.”
If you get very lucky, it is still possible to make discoveries in butterflying.
“You can go to Sonora, Mexico, and find a butterfly that’s never been identified or written up before,” says Dameron. “It’s just mind-boggling.”
A Pastime With Pluses
Like many other addictive pastimes, butterflying has a paradoxical effect: It is both exciting and relaxing.
When your entire field of vision is filled with the lovely form of a choice hairstreak or tortoiseshell butterfly, Dameron says, “You forget everything else.”
Birding, too, has the ability to transport you to another world. But Dameron thinks butterflying is superior in at least one respect.
“You don’t have to get up early,” she points out.
Although some fly at dawn, others at dusk, most butterflies flutter from about 9 in the morning until early afternoon.
