Join local lepidopterist Victor DeMasi, research associate at Peabody Museum of Natural History, on this walk through an outstanding open meadow to observe butterflies and learn about their ecology and conservation.
He will share and discuss his collection of butterflies from around the world, and specimens from the museum will be on display. He will point out the local flora and fauna as he leads a field walk in the beautiful Randall’s Farm meadow to observe butterflies up close.
Interested children are welcome! Specimens from museum will be on display. Sturdy shoes, long pants and tick repellant mandatory. Rain day is Sunday.
DeMasi has studied butterflies for the last 40 years in Connecticut and far away places such as the Amazon basin and Ethiopia.
Biography
Victor DeMasi is an extremely active member of The Pollinator Pathway. He was a wetland conservation officer in his hometown of Redding for 20 years and is presently a curatorial affiliate at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven. He busies himself with preserving open space in town and preserving butterflies in the museum. His field work with butterflies contributed almost a thousand citations to the recently published Connecticut Butterfly Atlas. He has contributed articles to scientific publications and his mark-recapture studies with Swallowtail butterflies was recently cited in the book Swallowtails of the Americas. During the pandemic he started doing a pollinator survey of two meadows in Redding CT.
Recent butterfly study trips with his spouse Roanna, a photographer, include several times to the Amazon forest in Guyana, Nicaragua, and yearly studies in the montane in California assessing the impact of climate change on that fauna. His work in South America was recently featured in The Yale Environmental News.
DeMasi is also 40 year owner of Monarch Painting, a decorative painting firm in Redding, Connecticut, which specializes, in faux finishes and trompe l’oeil. His murals often feature natural history subjects such as native wild flowers and butterflies.