May eButterflier of the Month

Elizabeth Long brought her passion for birds to butterflies during her graduate studies at UC Davis with Prof. Art Shapiro. Dr. Long is now a researcher at UCLA working in conservation biology at the La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science. She has been a member of eButterfly’s Scientific Advisory Panel and has contributed 55 checklists and recorded 125 species. She leads observations and checklists in both Arizona and California.  She also helps verify reported observations from California and the southwest USA.  Please join us in thanking Elizabeth for all she brings to eButterfly and the broader butterfly community.

We asked Elizabeth to tell us a bit more about herself and how she uses eButterfly. Here’s what she wrote.

“My husband is an avid birder and he’s been using eBird for years.  I was really jealous of the functionality of eBird, so when eButterfly came on-line I couldn’t wait to get started using it.  I’ve made it a part of my butterflying routine- after a day in the field, I sit down at the computer and enter my data into my eButterfly account.

It’s such an easy way to keep track of when and where I saw everything, and I love being able to get a spatial overview of where certain species are and the route covered by each transect.  I’m really looking forward to eButterfly attracting more users and accumulating more data, because I think one of the most powerful features is the ability to track phenology of certain species- when in the year they start flying, and how long they stay out.

I’m really lazy about photo documentation so I’ve made a promise to myself to work on that this year.   eButterfly will give me a nice way to keep those photos organized and easy to access in the future. I can’t wait to finally get a good photo series of pale swallowtails on my account!“