Orange, Black And Rare All Over

Durkin is a former teacher and journalist, a mother of three grown children and the operator of a bed and breakfast in Logan Circle. She is petite and quiet, particularly when she is out on the field.

She developed a passion for butterflies two decades ago after finding a green-and-black striped caterpillar on some parsley she was growing. She discovered that it would become a black swallowtail butterfly. "That made me excited," she said.

She co-founded the Washington Area Butterfly Club and later started the Baltimore Checkerspot Restoration Project. Several times a week, she drives through the agricultural reserve and stops when she sees a promising field, one near a stream, for example. Saving the checkerspot, which she began studying about seven years ago, would "justify my existence," she said.

Behind her Logan Circle house, in an alley that sees a lot of traffic, is a tiny garden she calls Dee's Butterfly Refuge, named for her mother.

"I don't really have a good answer," she said when asked to explain her affinity for butterflies. "You know, it's like, why do you fall in love with somebody?"

They are so charismatic, so interesting, she said.

On Friday afternoon, she led five volunteers on an expedition through the Red Wiggler farm after learning that Barbara Hittle, an avid bird watcher who works there, had spotted a black butterfly with orange trim a few days before.

As they hopped over streams, sometimes stumbling over branches and through bogs, they found some promising signs. Patches of skunk cabbage, stinging nettle and jewelweed meant that the group had arrived at wetlands.

"This is squishy here," Hittle said. A very good sign, Durkin declared.

Even better, their feet were buried in mud. They stopped and looked up at the sky. Birds whizzed by. So did butterflies, but not the right ones.

Then a tiny black creature zipped by.

"Oh my God," said Melanie Choukas-Bradley, a writer who helped organize the search.

"We got one," shouted Woody Woodroof, who runs the farm.

They turned to Durkin for confirmation.

The verdict: It was a checkerspot.

The significance of the discovery sunk in. It would be only the 11th colony to be found in Maryland and the first in Montgomery since the summer. The group cheered and took photos. Durkin waved her arms in victory. "This is a major find," Choukas-Bradley said.