Sights for Soar Eyes

The hikers moved single file, binoculars and nets held in readiness, scanning the sea of sage scrub in search of butterflies.

Curiously, few fluttered above the veritable feast of host plants--the flowering deer weed, monkey flower, buckwheat--that the rainy winter has brought to the rolling wilderness of southern Orange County.

With all these flowers for the taking, some wondered, where are the butterflies to feed on them?

Then news of a find travels down the line.

“Red admiral!” one hiker calls out.

“Red admiral,” the next hiker echoes.

“Good deal!” remarks butterfly counter Don Mitchell, who helped lead butterfly fanciers through the Rancho Mission Viejo Land Conservancy on Sunday for an annual butterfly hunt.

The effort was part of the eighth annual butterfly count overseen by the county chapter of the North American Butterfly Assn. Repeated nationwide, it helps monitor butterfly populations from coast to coast.

About 45 people joined the Sunday count, from children to veteran counters such as Mitchell, president of the association’s local chapter. Some came because they love butterflies, others because they like to hike.

But while Mitchell’s group counted 62 butterflies in all, he puzzled why they didn’t see more. He gestured at the rich growth of Indian paintbrush, the monkey flower heavy with blossoms.

“Everything looks a lot more lush than I’ve ever seen it,” Mitchell said. “We should have counted 500 butterflies by now.”

The same phenomenon is being noted by lepidopterists throughout the Los Angeles area. While the El Nino storms seem to have brought more of everything else to Southern California--more rain, more plants, more wildfire hazards in the offing--it has not brought more butterflies.

The reason is simple, butterfly expert Rudi Mattoni says. The past two years were poor ones for the plants on which butterflies feed, meaning that fewer of the insects took wing this spring.

“This is a culmination of bad years. You can’t get butterflies from nowhere,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. These numbers fluctuate like crazy.”

The current wealth of vegetation, in fact, could mean butterfly populations next year will soar.

Some on Sunday’s hike fear that a different threat could harm the butterflies and other wildlife at the conservancy, which is run by a nonprofit foundation and features some of the most pristine habitat in Orange County.

The county’s toll-road builders hope to construct the $644-million Foothill South highway running alongside the conservancy to the east. In an unusual move, both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have formally questioned whether the road is needed, but the road-building Transportation Corridor Agencies says population projections show it will help ease future congestion on Interstate 5.

Opposition is growing among environmental groups, who say that even if the road is needed, the current route would separate the conservancy from neighboring wilderness.

“The conservancy would be cut off, and animals couldn’t move around,” said butterfly counter Andrew Lichtman, an opponent of the current toll road route.

But while the Sunday conversation sometimes turned to highways and environmental politics, discovery of a new butterfly would swiftly draw hikers together to stare at the insect, flip through guides and race to identify the find.

They watched as experts such as Deirdre MacNeil swung her net and skillfully twisted it to capture a butterfly under the white mesh. There, the counters could study its wings and match it with the colored photos in their butterfly pamphlets. The exercise complete, MacNeil gently released the creature unharmed.

The most common find among Mitchell’s group was the California ringlet, a whitish, moth-like butterfly that flourishes in grasslands. They found a red-and-white speckled Chalcedon checkerspot, a reddish Behr’s metalmark, and three ethereal-toned Acmon blues, tiny blue butterflies that proved a favorite among the hikers.

“It’s such an intense color,” said Shirley Brisacher of Costa Mesa, who rated the Acmon blue her favorite. “I’ve never seen sky that blue. It’s just so uncommon.”

One butterfly even lit on a woman’s binoculars, riding along for several minutes as if to rest its wings.

More and more, people are joining in these butterfly counts, experts say. Some are former bird watchers, while others are entranced by the beauty of an insect that has come to symbolize metamorphosis. Still others call butterflies the natural barometers of environmental conditions.

“Butterflies are an indication of the health of the community at large,” Mitchell said.

And MacNeil, who first hunted butterflies with her father as a child, said they still intrigue her.

“They’re so beautiful,” she said. “They’re so free.”