Butterflies enthrall counters.

Byline: JACK MORAN The Register-Guard

Ken Raymen lagged far behind the rest of the group on Saturday morning, carefully scanning the tall grasses and multicolored flowers that cushion a meadow in the Willow Creek Natural Area in west Eugene.

Armed with a yellow-handled net, Raymen suddenly pivoted and took a quick swipe at a fluttering creature no larger than a quarter. The orange-tinted winged wonder, he would soon learn, was a butterfly known as a Field Crescent.

"Sharon!" Raymen called out as he jogged toward the rest of the group. "Have we caught one of these yet?"

"Oh my goodness," said Sharon Blick of the Eugene chapter of the North American Butterfly Association. "That's new. I think it's a Field Crescent. There aren't too many other butterflies around here that look like that."

"I was about 100 yards behind you," announced Raymen, proudly explaining his butterfly-catching strategy. "It popped up as soon as you guys walked by. These things are like deer during hunting season. They know when we're counting and then they hide."

Raymen and more than a dozen others joined Blick on Saturday for the local observance of the annual Fourth of July Butterfly Count - sure the Fourth has passed, but any time within the month is OK.

The group split up and explored locations including Spencer Butte Park, Mount Pisgah Arboretum and the West Eugene Wetlands in search of the delicate insects.

Each July, local NABA chapters around the country meet and complete similar counts, with results given to the national organization for its annual report. Blick said the data is primarily used by natural resources managers to find year-to-year changes in the number of butterflies in any given area.

Blick spent the morning leading Raymen, Kittie Yates and Jo Von Hippel around a semi-worn trail in the nature preserves. A butterfly fan since childhood, Blick is usually able to identify a Dun skipper or a Wood nymph before her followers even see them.

"When you do this long enough, and I've been watching butterflies since I was a little girl, you just kind of notice things moving and flying around," she said, pointing out a Cabbage white hovering in the sky. "There aren't a lot of butterflies in Oregon compared with a lot of North America. Butterflies don't like rain."

They certainly seemed to enjoy the July sun that warmed Blick's group as the four trudged through the wetlands area. In less than two hours, the group counted 124 butterflies, most of them Wood nymphs.

"Sharon, I caught a little white one this time," called out Raymen, not sure exactly what he'd netted.

"That's a moth," said Blick, who explained that moths are commonly confused with their larger cousins.

`You have to look closely because there are some really colorful moths. They belong to the same order as butterflies. Some people call them `honorary butterflies.' '

There are key differences. When moths land, they tend to fold up their wings. Butterflies land with their wings displayed over their back. Also, a butterfly's antennas have "knobs" on the end, Blick said.

The Eugene chapter of NABA is the organization's only local group in Oregon. Last year, the July count in and around the Eugene-Springfield area yielded more Western tiger swallowtails than in any other place in North America, Blick said. Later this month, NABA will hold its national meeting in Bend.

"We started this in Eugene in 1991," she said. She wanted people to be more aware of local butterflies.

For as much fun as he seemed to be having on Saturday, Raymen said there was a definite purpose in the butterfly-counting activity.

"I love this. Running around in a field, chasing butterflies is just great," he said. "It also benefits the continuation of the species. Hopefully, these types of counts will help keep areas like this from being developed."

CAPTION(S):

CHRIS PIETSCH / The Register-Guard Group leader Sharon Blick (left), Kittie Yates, Ken Raymen and Jo Von Hippel study a butterfly in Raymen's net during a survey in west Eugene on Saturday.