Trying to Rush Spring

I went out to inland Santa Barbara county on Happy Canyon and Sunset Valley Rds last week, hoping to find some early spring migrants, and some interesting butterflies. It was a gorgeous day, in the low 70s, with light breeze (this was 6 Apr). Other than pairs of expected Bullock's Orioles, I did not find the unexpected later spring migrants such as Western Tanager and Black-headed Grosbeak. I did hear one Cassin's Vireo up a steep oak slope, but it was nearly drowned out by the many Warbling Vireos. Every oak tree seemed to harbor a loudly singing House Wren, easily the dominant singer of the day:

 There were some butterflies about, the most dramatic being dozens of Pale Swallowtails, almost of them flying from one Blue Dick flower (or Wild Hyacinth, Brodeia) to another. This one was of particular interest due to its missing portion of hindwing, which may illustrate the strategy of the eyespots and tails on many butterflies at the hind end. The idea is to fool an attacking bird to mistake the rear for the head, leaving the butterfly with enough wing to continue to fly:

At the Nira campground, in a dry parallel river bed to the rushing creek, I found what I will tentatively ID as an Edith's Checkerspot. This is quite similar to the more common Chalcedon Checkerspot. Kathleen and I have signed up for a week's intensive "Butterflies of the Sierras" field course up at Yuba Pass along the Yuba River in early July. We will probably visit the challenges of checkerspot distribution and maybe I'll look at these differently. Stay tuned.