Tweets,

Wanting to take advantage of yesterday's (Saturday) fine weather, my wife
and I put our canoe into Port Susan, the bay between the east coast of
Camano Island and the mainland, not far from Stanwood 9 (DeLorme page 95,
C5. The birding was fun, though not exceptional. We hugged the shore for a
few miles, along which the most common birds (other than gulls) were WESTERN
GREBES, MALLARDS, COMMON MERGANSERS, GREAT BLUE HERONS and lots of KILLDEER.
After our shore break we decided to take a shortcut back to the boat launch
area across open water. The weather was warm and sunny with literally no
wind at all. I have never seen such a flat calm on salt water. Away from
shore there were goodly numbers of SURF SCOTERS and COMMON LOONS, the latter
treating us to much of their "laughter" vocalizing.

As we paddled a hundred or so yards from shore we noticed we were heading
toward an area where the water's surface seemed to have lots of small downy
feathers on it. But, as we got closer, we saw that these were not feathers
at all but small butterflies (moths?), many with one wing on the water's
surface and the other at right angles to it. Most, however, were on their
backs, some fluttering and some not. Scanning the water with binoculars, we
could see these for a very long way, although our distance vision was
limited by being so close to the surface. We paddled through at least a
mile of these before taking a right angle turn to see if they extended out
in that direction as well. They did. My guess is that there was a downed
butterfly on average every hundred square feet or so. We continued on
toward the boat launch ramp, and this phenomenon lasted until we were
within about a hundred yards from shore. I cannot begin to guess how many
butterflies were on the water, but they must have amounted to hundreds of
thousands.

These are small butterflies (wingspan about an inch) with tannish markings
on off-white wings and similarly colored bodies (with a hint of green),
which reminded me of the inchworms I picked from our garden years ago.

One of the oddest things about all this is that at no time did we see one
of these creatures flying. All were on the water. It was as if they had
been caught in some sort of downdraft and deposited on the water, where
they were immobilized. But the weather there had been very benign for days:
no sudden storms and no stiff breezes. We collected a couple of specimens,
although one disappeared on the way home.

We kept thinking of birds migrating over great distances of water, the
weakest not making it to land. But all of the butterflies we saw were on
their backs, within a mile of land, with not even a hint of a breeze
blowing. We are very puzzled. Mass suicide?

Anyone out there have any ideas about this? I'd be happy to send on the
critter we brought home to an appropriate source if that would help.

Many thanks,

David Chelimer
Seattle
chelimer at uswest.net