PORT ANGELES — Robert Pyle spent a year on a wild-butterfly chase and lived to tell the tale.
He’ll do that tonight with a talk on his book Mariposa Road: The First Butterfly Big Year in the Raymond Carver Room at the Port Angeles Library, 2210 S. Peabody St. Admission to the 7 p.m. presentation is free.
Part road-trip tale, part travelogue of lost and found landscapes, all good-natured natural history, Mariposa Road tracks Pyle’s journey across the United States as he races against the calendar in his search for as many of the 800 species of American butterflies as he can find.
Mariposa Road recounts his adventures, high and low, tracking down butterflies in his own low-tech way.
Accompanied by Marsha, his cottonwood-limb butterfly net; Powdermilk, his 1982 Honda Civic with 345,000 miles on the odometer; and the small Leitz binoculars he has carried for more than 30 years, Pyle ventured out in a series of trips from his Northwest home.
On his quest, Pyle roamed the California coastline in the company of overwintering monarchs, ventured to the far northern tundra in pursuit of mysterious sulphurs and arctics, and traveled from Graceland to ranchland and Kauai to Key West, enjoying intimate encounters with the land, its people and its other fauna.
Pyle is the author of 13 other books, including Where Bigfoot Walks, Wintergreen and Sky Time in Gray’s River, which won the National Outdoor Book Award.
He’ll have copies of his books available for sale and signing tonight.