Butterflies with Victor DeMasi

Join Land Heritage Coalition of Glastonbury, Inc. and Connecticut lepidopterist Victor DeMasi, research associate at Peabody Museum of Natural History, on a walk through Manchester Land Conservation Trust’s (MLCT) Bush Hill Preserve, to observe butterflies and learn about their ecology and conservation. The 178-acre preserve, consisting of former farm parcels on the Glastonbury/Manchester Town line, will be accessed through the parking area at 871 Hillstown Road, Manchester, CT.

Mr. DeMasi 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 Preserve’s meadows and fields to observe butterflies up close.

Victor DeMasi has studied butterflies for the last 40 years in Connecticut and in far away places, such as the Amazon basin and Ethiopia. He 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 Redding and preserving butterflies at the museum. His field work with butterflies has 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 yearly pollinator surveys 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 the 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.

Interested children are welcome! Wear sturdy shoes and long pants. Tick repellent is recommended. The field walk will start promptly at 10:00am