28 Nebraskaland • August-September 2022
campus includes wading through waist-high grasses,
stepping through shrubs and climbing hills to lesser-visited
places in the garden.
"It's not just a nice little path," Joanne commented, Holly
adding that she's a bit rusty every spring until she can get
back in shape.
Another challenge about butterfl y surveying is that
identifi cation can be tricky. Butterfl ies fl y in an erratic
pattern to evade birds and can easily be mistaken for falling
leaves, grasshoppers or moths. Simply spotting them at all
can be diffi cult without practice. But after spending time
with Holly and Joanne, it's apparent how quick their eyes are:
They can spot a brown praying mantis camoufl aged in the
grass and notice butterfl ies the size of a fi ngernail.
Joanne and Holly's butterfl y knowledge was hard-won —
they're entirely self-taught. The two met in Nebraska's master
naturalist program, which off ers training and volunteer
opportunities to anyone interested in the natural world. The
two connected easily: They are both from Bellevue and are
both women interested in nature. They began surveying for
butterfl ies after an introductory class at Lauritzen Gardens,
but it was slow going at fi rst.
"We started knowing zero," Joanne said. "The fi rst year it
was just learning [the species]. … It was about three years to
where we were pretty comfortable."
As they gained knowledge and experience, the surveying
grew in complexity.
"It's something that just built," Holly said. "We started out,
and it was really simple. And then we would talk about it and
say, 'What if we counted them? What if we wrote down what
gardens they were in?'"
Simple Rewards
What can motivate someone to spend hours every week
looking for butterfl ies? For Holly and Joanne, part of it is pure
logistics: If they didn't go every week, they would be missing
out on important data.
"Butterfl ies don't have that long of a lifespan, so if you go
Eastern Tailed-Blue
Least Skipper
Viceroy
