Hello! I?m back again, this time with reports on what I?ve been doing during this summer.  Recently I?ve been looking back through the reports I wrote during my summer internship 2015 at Madrona Marsh Nature Preserve center in my hometown, Torrance California. I thought it might be interesting to share one of my individual reports with our Tunza Family-the Butterfly report. I know it does not seem to be a right season to talk about butterflies, but I hope this interests you. Enjoy reading!

First to briefly introduce what the Madrona Marsh Preserve is, the Madrona Marsh Preserve is known to be one of the ?last remaining vernal freshwater marshes? in my local area. Ever since the European has discovered my home state, the discovery has greatly harmed our environment. However, with great amount of dedication and effort from Madrona Marsh preserve nature center, many portion of the Madrona Marsh Preserve?s environment has returned back almost to the condition of the time native Indians lived in this land. Considerable amount of species are returned with native plant species readapted. Thousands of birds use this place as migration point. Volunteering at such wonderful place since freshman year fall and working as an intern since my sophomore year of my high school, I was able to learn many skills, such as learning how to do butterfly survey, and working with enthusiastic people who are more than ready to protect our environment.

Butterfly report was one of the opportunities I got during this year. The way I did it was first familiarizing myself with local native butterflies memorizing butterfly charts. Their scientific name was very difficult to me (since it was in latin,) I first attempted to learn the English name. Then, with the help of professional naturalists, I started going outdoors to observe butterflies. The time period was April through September, except for my 3 week absence at Stanford University. When I started this observation, I wasn?t able to gain notable results. I just walked around up until everyone left the preserve from Saturday volunteering. But as I became more used to this observation, I learned to wear darker clothes to get closer to butterflies, to take better reference pictures, effectively record tally sheet, find best spots to find butterflies, and even introduce butterflies to the visitors. I learned to distinguish variety of butterflies based on their flying patterns, wing color, and the plant they are commonly found. For instance, I learned to distinguish the 1^st and 3^rd generation of Cabbage white butterfly by their wing color and the dot patterns. I?ve had opportunity to once join butterfly observation group from another county and it was very interesting to learn from each different experts.

Unfortunately I haven?t been having a chance to go out and observe native plants and animals like I used to back in summer, due to school work. (This motivated me to write this report!) But I hope that I will go back to the preserve soon and work with wonderful people at wonderful place! I will end this report with some photos I took at the preserve?