Free Family Saturday + Free Shuttles = FUN!

Tomorrow's Mid Oregon Credit Union Free Family Saturday just got better: it's an hour longer, from 10 am to 5 pm. Avoid parking hassles and hop the free, continuous shuttles from Morning Star Christian School, 19741 Baker Rd., off Hway 97, Baker Road exit. Avoid parking lot traffic snarls and shuttle it!

A record-breaking number of visitors – 4,740 – attended last month’s free day. Everyone enjoyed seeing our live raptors, bobcat, lynx, Butterflies exhibit in our warm, lush indoor garden and Spirit of the West and Native American cultural exhibits. Have lunch or snacks at our Rimrock cafe. Shop the Museum store, Silver Sage Trading, for books, jewelry, and toys inspired by the High Desert.

Remember, once the Museum parking lot is full, drivers will experience delays approaching and exiting the Museum. Please be courteous. And, don't park on Highway 97. It is illegal.

Thanks to Mid Oregon Credit Union for another fabulous community event, and to Wanderlust Tours for help with the shuttles!

Finally: Gorgeous Atlas Moth Emerges!

A beautiful, long awaited Atlas moth has emerged from its cocoon after a two-month wait. This species is the largest type of moth in the world. Ours has a wingspan of about eight inches. Its lifespan is only about two weeks, so now is the time to see it, along with scores of butterflies in our warm, lush, indoor garden.

You also can see our 19 Atlas moth cocoons in our pupa room, and we may have more emerging soon.

The dessert-plate sized moth’s appearance on Sunday was much anticipated. The cocoons of this Southeast Asian species arrived in December, and the moths were expected to emerge in about 10 days. Visitors who had seen Atlas moths in our live Butterflies exhibit in November consistently asked our exhibit staff and volunteers when we would have more.

In mid-January, butterfly expert Robert Michael Pyle, author of Mariposa Road: the First Butterfly Big Year, visited and confirmed that the pupas were with still alive, and so we waited, and waited and waited, watching the brown, cigar-like cocoons for activity.

Once Atlas moths emerge, their lives are short, but purposeful. They are born with no mouths. They live off the fat of their bodies, reproduce, and die. They aren’t great flyers.

“They aren’t as agile as the smaller moths and butterflies,” says Dana Whitelaw, vice president of programs. “They look kind of like a Volkswagen bus coming at you.”

Yet the intricately patterned blue, yellow and orange moth has been an ambassador for moths.

“Typically, our connection to nocturnal things that come flying at us is that it’s scary or ‘icky,’ ” says Whitelaw. “It is very human to associate things at night as being bad.”

Today, as visitors of all ages peered with wonder at this mega-moth and the cocoons, it was clear they will never consider a moth in the same way again.

The live Butterflies exhibit runs through March 26.

Photo credit: High Desert Museum Photography Volunteer Abbott Schindler

See it Like a Volunteer

Want to know what it’s like at the Museum from the perspective of a volunteer?
Tom McDannold spends a lot of time helping people have fun and get the most from our live Butterflies exhibit. Here’s what “Dr. Tom” (emeritus professor of geology, California’s Ventura College) has to say:

Wow!!! What an amazing exhibit. Butterflies is the most unusual thing in a museum that I have experienced. Being surrounded by free-flying butterflies in the midst of winter in Central Oregon is really something.

It was particularly neat because I am a new volunteer at the Museum. I must admit that I was nervous about volunteering to tell people about the butterflies, but the staff and other volunteers made it easy and fun. If you have not seen the exhibit, stop by.

P.S. Let me know you read this post and I'll give you a special tour.

Stay tuned for more updates from Tom on his interesting experiences in the midst of Butterflies!
(The exhibit has been held over by popular demand through March 26.)

Badger (Not Groundhog) Signals Spring's Coming

Today’s Groundhog Day, and although we don’t have a groundhog here, Bonnie the badger is acting as if spring is coming soon. She has been sunning herself and coming out of winter torpor, a less active physiological state.
“She’s much more alert and active these days, and not curled up in a ball sleeping,” says Kelli Neumann, program mammals specialist. “When it’s sunny, she doesn’t want to play, she just wants to lay in the sun. She rolls on her back and begs to get her belly scratched.”
Otherwise, she’d prefer to like to play with Kelli and her favorite toy, a hand broom. “She carries it around with the bristles in her teeth,” Kelli says.
Bonnie and her brother, Clyde, take it easy in winter. They put on a few pounds and stay behind the scenes in their habitats. In summer, they meet Museum visitors close up and show off their powerful claws and how fast they can dig.
In the meantime, our sun-drenched, winding trails are perfect for meeting High Desert raptors, fox, porcupine and otter close up!
Photo credit: Jennifer Loring