Valley Song

This painting is a celebration of Oregon's Willamette Valley grasslands. The Western Meadowlark sings his beautiful lilting melody as he surveys his territory. The butterfly is an endangered Fender's Blue. The flowers are Kincaid's Lupine, also extremely rare. The butterfly caterpillars only feed on this lupine. Efforts to restore habitat for the lupine, and thus for the butterfly as well, have resulted in growing numbers of both. They can be found at Baskett Slough and William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuges in the Willamette Valley.