Butterflies And Me

I love butterflies, Monarchs, skippers, checkers, blues, sulphers ... and White Admirals.  Monarchs get all the press these days and I really think butterfly awareness is a good thing.  Their caterpillars are cute. Their chrysalis is decorated with gold.  Their orange and black pattern is bold and eye-catching.  Their migration is miraculous.

White Admirals on the other hand have a caterpillar that looks like bird droppings.  I have never in fact seen one because their caterpillars feed on trees like willow, poplar, and hawthorn. I often see several White Admirals on Ed's Summersweet.  They quickly flit away when approached. Usually I get a picture of white flowers and no butterfly.  This time though, one of the butterflies stayed. I was delighted!   How about this unusual shot of the underside of the butterfly?  I could have cropped out that upside-down garbage can I suppose but it went so nicely with the upside-down butterfly.

I carefully moved in closer and snapped another picture.  Amazingly the butterfly stayed put.  You can actually see it sipping nectar through its proboscis!

A picture of a White Admiral with its wings wide open was more than I thought possible.  I began to wonder if there was some reason why the butterfly could not fly.

However, just when I had taken this photo Ed approached.  When I spoke to him the White Admiral flew away and was quickly out of sight.  I don't have the patience to chase after butterflies with the camera, but this time I got very lucky.