Ray Albright This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. NewsRegister.com

   www.newsregister.com/news/stor - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/24/2001   Last Visited: 7/24/2001

   DAYTON - Butterflies stretch their iridescent wings in almost every nook and cranny of the office where the late Ray Albright spent more than 60 years practicing his favorite hobby.
   
   Well , every nook and cranny that's not filled with research books or bird specimens or other paraphernalia of a lifelong naturalist.
   
   We did a little of everything , but Ray really loved the butterflies , said his wife , Ann Albright.
   
   Also a butterfly enthusiast , she will put many of her husband's specimens on display this weekend during Dayton Old-timers Festival of Fun. Admission is free to the display in the city library.
   ...
   Like other collectors , Ray Albright always had museums in mind.
   
   He intended these for scientific study , his wife said.
   
   Albright , who died last year , started collecting butterflies shortly after he graduated from Dayton High School in 1932. When the Lepidopterists' Society formed in 1947 , he was a charter member.
   
   He worked alongside and shared information with other Yamhill County insect collectors , including Ken Fender of McMinnville , for whom the Fender's Blue butterfly is named.
   
   Albright didn't confine himself only to flying insects , though. The amateur naturalist and taxidermist collected and scientifically prepared hundreds of mammals , birds eggs , and nests , as well.
   
   In the 1950s , he worked at the Oregon Caves as a park ranger. A bat specialist there , he banded bats and wrote an article about bats in the caves.
   
   Wrangling butterflies
   
   ...
   Albright and her husband went through the mounting process thousands and thousands of times , thumbing through reference books to find out exactly what they had captured.
   
   You try to collect in a series and separate them by variety. You need at least five specimens , some male and some female , to have good proof that the butterflies are in the area , but you don't want to take too many and clean them out , she said.
   
   She still has dozens of boxes filled with bagged butterflies , waiting to be stretched out and mounted. The finished ones , fingernail size to 8 inches across , are carefully lined up in glass-topped wooden cases. Ironically , the moths and butterflies are protected by mothballs - the medicinal smell keeps tiny insects from cannibalizing the specimens.
   
   The collection includes most of the 400 or so butterflies native to Oregon , such as the orange and black Painted Ladies , white Cabbage Butterflies and numerous kinds of Skippers , all slightly different from one another.
   
   It also contains species from all over the United States , the rest of North America and South America.
   ...
   A few Japanese butterflies came to Dayton when Ray Albright traded with collectors in that country.
   
   Collecting in South America
   
   He and his wife collected most of the butterflies themselves. In addition to traveling in Oregon and the U.S. , they made collecting trips to Brazil , Peru , Guatemala and Ecuador.
   
   We wanted to make a record of what's in the rain forest before it disappeared , she explained.
   
   Besides , she said , the tropics are really fun. That's where the really fun butterflies come from..
   
   Many of the brownish and whitish Oregon butterflies look plain compared to their colorful South American cousins. Neon blue Morphos from Brazil , for instance , may be common in the rain forest , but they seem exotic in the Oregon rain.
   
   Butterflies have slender bodies and smooth antennae that end in clubs.