Dry Lake, Shasta County - 6/19/07

Tuesday afternoon, June 19, 2007, Joe Smith and I met at Dry Lake, in Lassen National Forest, to document the occurrence of several thousand very small skippers that Joe had found several days earlier. They were still present in large numbers (~5,000). Joe collected several of these tiny butterflies. Their wingspans measured 7/8 to 1 inch. The question as to ID was posted to NorWestLeps, a Yahoo discussion group. The consensus was that these are Sandhill Skipper, Polites sabuleti, (confirming Joe's initial thoughts on ID) with the possible exception of the individual in Photo #s 16 - 19.

The first three links below will take you to 23 sequentially numbered butterfly photographs (in the wild), shown in the order taken. After Photo 23 is an image, taken by Joe, of some pinned specimens.

Scrolling down this page will take you to a map, a satellite image, and photographs showing the habitat at Dry Lake.

Dry Lake, elevation 5,900 feet MSL, is a large level meadow, about 35 acres in size. It is a wet meadow with varied clovers and asters, buttercups, sedges and grasses. The lake is approximately 3-1/4 miles (~8 miles by road) northwest of Mineral, a small community in eastern Tehama County. It is also one mile southeast of Grays Peak, and 3.5 miles from the southwestern Lassen Park boundary. The above USGS 7.5 minute quad map shows Dry Lake and its surroundings. Dry Lake is on A17, a gravel road connecting Hwy 36 (near Mineral) with Hwy 44 (near the Manzanita Lake entrance to Lassen Park).

Google Earth satellite image of Dry Lake. The narrow meadow (approx. 1.2 acres) extending west from the lake to the road is where the greatest number of skippers were found. The bottom four photos are of this meadow.

This and remaining photos show the habitat at Dry Lake.

Meadow containing highest concentration of skippers.

Same meadow.

Typical habitat with white clover.

Closeup of clover habitat.