Chasing Butterflies

August 22, 2025

On a warm, sunny afternoon in early April, when it felt like spring might be settling in for good, I went looking for Mourning Cloak butterflies. This butterfly has dark, reddish-brown wings with a lacy-looking yellow edge that reminded someone long ago of the traditional garments worn by people in mourning and they dubbed it a ‘Mourning Cloak’ In Britain, however, they call it a Camberwell Beauty, a name that originated from its discovery in Camberwell, South London in 1748.

**Mourning Cloak butterfly Portman Preserve April 12, 2025**

I spotted my very first “winter” Mourning Cloak a few years ago in late March while there was still snow on the ground! The temperature had climbed to a balmy 65-degrees, but I still didn’t expect to see a butterfly floating languidly over a pile of snow! It seemed so incongruous! Prior to that day in March, I had no idea that some butterflies, like the Mourning Cloak, overwintered as adults!

**Mourning Cloak butterfly three years earlier on the same date and the same location (April 12, 2022 Portman Preserve, Mattawan, Michigan)**

Butterflies that overwinter as adults tuck themselves away in tree cavities, leaf litter, cracks in rocks, loose bark, and the crevices of unheated buildings in order to survive. When they emerge on a warm spring-like day, they feed on tree sap, particularly from oak and maple trees, to regain their strength. If the cold temperatures resume, which they inevitably do, overwintering adult butterflies head back to their hiding places and wait for warmer weather.

**‘Summer’ Mourning Cloak July 9, 2023**

Butterflies that don’t overwinter as adults spend the winter as a chrysalis, a caterpillar, or an egg. Other butterflies, like the monarch, migrate south to find more hospitable accommodations.

When I ventured out in early April looking for a Mourning Cloak butterfly, I was pleasantly surprised to find several of them darting about! I also found a few Eastern Commas, and one tiny Spring Azure butterfly! Spring Azures don’t overwinter as adults like the Mourning Cloaks and the Eastern Commas, but spend the cold winter months as a chrysalis. In late winter or early spring, they emerge as adults, find a mate, lay eggs, and die within just a few days!

**Eastern Comma butterfly April 12, 2025**

**A tiny Spring Azure on April 12, 2025**

After finding these three different butterflies so early in the season, I was hopeful that I would find even more varieties during the month of May. I went to several different nature preserves over the course of that month and managed to find even more butterflies than I did in April, but most of them were very, very small and not particularly colorful. I LOVE finding the bigger, flashier butterflies like the monarchs, fritillaries, and swallowtails, especially when they land on the bright orange butterfly weed, pink swamp milkweed, lavender bee balm, yellow salsify, or the beautiful magenta-colored ironweed. The combination makes for some stunning pictures.

The collection of butterflies I ended up with in May included a Hobomok Skipper, Little Wood Satyr, Pepper and Salt Skipper, Silver Spotted Skipper, Zabulon Skipper, a Wild Indigo Dusky Wing, Red-spotted Admiral, Viceroy, Eastern Comma, and several Pearl Crescents.

In June, I saw my first Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and my first Spangled Fritillary of the season, plus two small butterflies that were different from the ones I had seen in May: a tiny Eastern-tailed Blue, and a little Essex Skipper. Both have wingspans of about an inch!

**Silver-spotted Skipper on Bee Balm June 29, 2025**

July was my very best month for chasing butterflies! There were enough swallowtails, fritillaries, monarchs, viceroys, and red-spotted admirals to keep me happy, and there were a few I hadn’t yet seen during May and June: an American Lady, an Appalachian Brown, a Coral Hairstreak, a Little Glassy Wing Skipper, a Northern Broken Dash, a Northern Pearly Eye, a Tawny Emperor, and an Orange Sulphur. Whew!

**Coral Hairstreak butterfly on Butterfly Weed**

**Little Glassywing Skipper on Bee Balm**

**Northern Broken Dash butterfly on Bee Balm**

August didn’t bring me any new butterflies, but I continued to enjoy the butterflies I had already seen as they fluttered delicately through the various fields of fading summer flowers that I like to visit.

**Black Swallowtail Butterfly on Bull Thistle**

**Eastern Giant Swallowtail on Purple Coneflower**

**Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Ironweed**

**Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, black morph**, **on Bee Balm**

**Great Spangled Fritillary on Butterfly Weed**

If you want to help overwintering insects like Mourning Cloaks and Eastern Commas, you can start by not cleaning up your yard too early in the spring! Leave all that leaf litter beneath your trees and in your gardens. It’s likely to contain overwintering caterpillars, eggs, or adult butterflies. You can also set up a fruit feeding station in the spring with overripe bananas, cantaloupe, or rotting fruit that will provide sustenance for the mourning cloaks and other butterflies that have been overwintering.

To continue enjoying these wonderful butterflies as well as other creatures, we all need to assume responsibility for maintaining as many natural areas as we can, including our own backyards, and refrain from the widespread use of insecticides!

**Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Meadow Salsify**

Habitat loss and the use of insecticides are killing the creatures we love—not just the ones we don’t love!

What saves them, saves us.

Troubled Times

June 23, 2025

With all of the terrifying actions of this current administration, my picture walks have become more and more imperative to my mental health. When I’m out taking pictures, I am lost in my own world, focused on those fleeting moments of beauty and joy that, at least for a few hours, give me the illusion of a better world—but even that can be a struggle.

Yesterday, I left the house by 7:00 a.m., before the oppressive heat of the day was expected to settle in, and went for a picture walk hoping to find monarchs, viceroys, or swallowtails flitting about in the fields or perched on newly emerged flowers. They were nowhere to be found!

You don’t have to look hard or long to find proof that we are at a crisis point regarding our butterfly populations.

“A new study published today in Science has found that populations of butterflies across the United States are declining. In addition to dramatic declines for individual species, the study concluded that total abundance of butterflies has declined by 22% from 2000 to 2020. That means that for every five butterflies seen 20 years ago, now there are only four.”

This is both disturbing and alarming. Sadly, the reasons for their decline are all too familiar: habitat loss, climate change, and pesticide use. Almost every creature I love to photograph faces these same challenges. We are stewards of this earth and bear the responsibility for those losses; either through the people we elect, the poisons we use in our own yards, or the habitats we desecrate. It’s on us.

**This Blanding’s Turtle is just one of many creatures whose numbers are in decline due to habitat loss**

On a happier note, my early morning walk was filled with a multitude of much smaller butterflies than the monarchs or the swallowtails– mostly little essex skippers and the slightly larger silver-spotted skippers. I was also delighted to find a large contingent of dragonflies– eight different types to be exact, and one damselfly!

**A tiny Essex Skipper butterfly on Meadow Hawkweed**

**Silver-spotted Skipper on a small Oxeye Daisy**

**Small White butterfly** **on a tiny bit of clover**

The previous day, I had gone on an early evening walk, also trying to avoid the heat of the day and hoping to capitalize on the soft, warm light of the setting sun. Apart from the mosquitoes, early evening is a perfect time of day for nature shots! Everything seems quieter, more relaxed– even the colors quiet down! And there are creatures I rarely see, like sandhill cranes, skittish bunnies, and industrious little muskrats.

**One of two Sandhill Cranes foraging in the early evening light**

**Eastern Cottontail that hadn’t yet noticed me**

**Mama Wood Duck and her eight obedient offspring**

Sometimes, when the whole day stretches before me with no appointments or obligations, I pack myself a snack and go on a ‘field trip!’ Luckily for me, there are at least a half dozen nature preserves within an hour’s drive of where we live and I rotate through them on a regular basis. It’s always fun to go someplace ‘new’ even if I’ve been there before!

**Male Red-winged Blackbird with a damselfly snack**

In the long run, it doesn’t really matter where I take pictures, or what time of day I go, or even if I don’t find something out of the ordinary; it’s the walk itself that’s kept me sane throughout these troubled times, and the connections that have been forged as a result.

Some Days…

August 23, 2024

Some days it’s really hard for me to push myself out the door and go for a picture walk—even though it’s something I love to do. Today was one of those days. I’d already gone for a long, leisurely walk with friends earlier in the day, and I’d already taken enough pictures. There was no logical reason to go out again. But it was a perfectly beautiful day; not hot, not humid, not windy. It would be a shame to waste all that loveliness by sitting in the house– and I would always wonder what I’d missed if I didn’t go. As it turned out, I would have missed everything!

My walk started out, as it often does, down by the creek behind our house where the dragonflies gather. I’ve found blue dashers, familiar bluets, slaty skimmers, Eastern pondhawks, and Eastern amberwings at the creek all summer long, but today there was a surprise–an American rubyspot damselfly! It’s one of the prettiest little damselflies I’ve ever seen, but rarely find. My trip out the door had already paid off!

Next on my route was the nearby WMU Business Technology and Research Park with its vast expanse of prairie grasses and wildflowers where I was hoping to find a few lingering butterflies or, perhaps, the first praying mantis of the season. There were so many possibilities! What first caught my attention, though, was a stunning green darner dragonfly, floating above the grasses looking for a place to land. I rarely see them, or get a picture, so I tracked its movements through the air hoping it would land somewhere that would be easy enough to photograph. Unfortunately, it chose a spot about 15 feet away and below my line of sight. I carefully picked my way through the high grass hoping to find it, hoping not to disturb it, and hoping not to acquire a few ticks along the way! I succeeded on all counts!

**Female Common Green Darner Dragonfly**

The fields of tall grass and wild flowers at the business park have beautifully mowed trails all the way through. One of those paths that I particularly like to walk has praying mantises along the way–and now is the time to find them!

**WMU Business Technology and Research Park mowed path**

They like hanging out on the tall stalks as they look for love. But they’re so well camouflaged that it’s almost impossible to find them! It’s like the ultimate Where’s Waldo challenge, but without the red and white striped hats to distinguish them! Sometimes, I’ll find 10 or more on a single walk; today I only found one, but it was almost as exciting as winning the lottery! And there were more surprises ahead!

After spotting the praying mantis, I very quietly and cautiously headed over to the small pond across the road where I once found a giant snapping turtle draped across a large rock. On rare occasions, I’ve also found a great blue heron standing motionlessly along the edges waiting for its his next meal to swim by.

**Giant Snapping turtle that I found on a previous visit to the pond behind Floyd Hall**

I’d barely crossed the road when I spotted the great blue heron! He was standing on the opposite side of the pond in his familiar stoic pose. From experience, I knew this bird might not move for a very long time. Great blue herons are extremely patient birds as they wait for their next meal. I took a few pictures as he stood there, and then I too waited, hoping for a better shot. Eventually, this magnificent bird very cautiously moved one of its legs, and then the other as it crept forward into the water. It occurred to me in that quiet moment of concentration that we were both doing the very same thing; standing quietly and watching our prey, then moving ever so slowly towards it, hoping to make the catch!

From the pond behind Floyd Hall, I headed over to another pond where I hoped to find one of the green herons that visited regularly. What first caught my eye, though, was a mallard hybrid of some sort that had a wide band of white around its neck. It was wider than I what I usually see on a male mallard and I worried that it might be a piece of plastic. So, I zoomed in and quickly realized that this was just another goofy looking duck. Mallards breed with a wide variety of other ducks including domestic ducks, American black ducks and Northern pintails– all of which result in some very odd-looking offspring, including this one!

**The odd duck with the wide white neck band**

But my best surprise was still waiting for me.

I went to the footbridge that crosses over the pond hoping to find the elusive green heron. As I stood at one end of the bridge with my camera pointed towards the pond, a red-tailed hawk landed on the railing to my left at the other end of the bridge– only 20 feet away! It took my breath away! I really, really wanted a picture but I didn’t know if my settings were right, and I knew if he saw me move, he’d fly away. So, I very, very slowly turned my camera in his direction and quickly took a burst of shots, hoping for the best. Perhaps he noticed my barely perceptible movements or heard the click of my camera; within fifteen seconds, he was gone! Wow! I’ve never been that close to a hawk before!

**Red-tailed Hawk on the footbridge 20 feet from me!**

**The hawk turned in my direction and took off as quickly as he came**

After the hawk flew off, the green heron flew in and I got the shot!

**Green Heron contemplating his next meal**

On my slow amble towards home, a few butterflies posed politely for pictures and my picture walk was complete!

**Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on spotted knapweed**

It was the best day ever– among a bucketful of best days where I’ve been lucky enough to still do all the things I love.

**Monarch Butterfly on spotted knapweed**

Walking into Winter

October 22, 2020

It’s another cold and rainy October day as I write this– not a day for pictures, but a day for bird watching from my easy chair! I am perfectly situated for this endeavor, with the fireplace in front of me, a large sliding glass door next to me, and a hot cup of tea snuggled between my hands. Just outside that sliding glass door is a second story deck where we have bird feeders filled with sunflower seeds, suet and peanuts. Today, there’s an entertaining assortment of sparrows, nuthatches, titmice, finches, grackles, blue jays, woodpeckers, cardinals, and black-capped chickadees taking full advantage of our all-you-can-eat buffet.

Our lovely fall colors before winter comes in earnest!

The Robins stick around all winter but we don’t often see them once the snow flies.

One of the last painted turtles I’ll see until spring, and a pied-billed grebe with its catch of the day!

Unfortunately, this rainy, gloomy weather has persisted for days on end now, with only intermittent bouts of sunshine, so it’s been difficult to squeeze in a picture walk. On the days where I have managed to get outdoors with my camera, it’s been so much harder to find things to photograph; gone are the colorful butterflies and dragonflies, gone are the beautiful fields of wildflowers, and gone are the fickle birds who only enjoy Michigan when it’s warm! What I am finding instead are the migrating birds, the ones just passing through on their way to Florida or other sunny havens—like the sandpipers, the northern shovelers, the greater yellowlegs, the gadwalls, and the white-crowned sparrows. Truth be told, I’m a fickle bird as well, and would scurry off to Florida in a heartbeat– were it not for this horrible pandemic!

Greater Yellowlegs and a Killdeer on the mudflats at the Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery

In spite of the colder, darker days ahead and the loss of so much color, I still look forward to my quiet, solitary forays into the ‘wild’ to see what Mother Nature has left for me. It will get bitterly cold in the days ahead and the snow will eventually blanket everything. I will have to dress warmer, look harder and wait longer for one bird or another to show up, so I give myself pep talks: “It’s good to be out in nature! It’s good to be out walking and breathing the fresh air! It’s good to have an outdoor hobby!” But sometimes, even the best pep talks in the world won’t stand a chance when the mercury drops below freezing and even my camera doesn’t want to go outside!

My grandson feeding one of the friendly Black-capped Chickadees at Kensington Nature Center

Eastern Bluebird and a Yellow-rumped Warbler

Sandhill Cranes are a common sight (and sound) these October days.

An inviting path at the Kalamazoo Nature Center

Colorado Rocky Mountain High

Mel and I have just returned from a vacation in Colorado where we both enjoyed pursuing our passions—fly fishing for him, nature photography for me.

August 28-29

Hitchcock Nature Center, Honey Creek, Iowa

Our four day, twelve hundred mile car journey from Michigan to Colorado took us through the states of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. According to Google Maps, it’s only a 16 hour journey— that is if you don’t stop to sleep or eat or go to the bathroom! We did all of the aforementioned, plus took a side trip to Honey Creek Iowa where we spent two days in a cozy little cabin on the grounds of the Hitchcock Nature Center. While at the nature center, we took pictures walks along the Fox Ridge Run Trail and the Boardwalk Trail.

Yelllow-billed Cuckoo (Mel’s shot)
Dickcissel

Great Spangled Fritillary on Field Thistle

Baltimore Oriole
Red-headed Woodpecker (Mel’s pic)

August 30- September 2

Ft. Collins, Colorado

From Honey Creek, Iowa we headed through Nebraska to Fort Collins, our first Colorado destination.

Fort Collins is well known for its excellent fly fishing opportunities and a multitude of natural areas to explore. Over the course of our stay in Fort Collins, Mel went fishing several places along the Cache La Poudre River, while I took picture walks along the Hewlett Gulch Trail, the Fossil Creek Reservoir (twice) and at the Colorado State University Annual Trial Flower Garden. Mel joined me for picture walks on one of my visits to the reservoir and at the university flower garden.

Cache La Poudre River where Mel was fishing
(He took this picture while he was fishing and you can see the tip of his rod in the lower right corner.)

Bumble Flower Beetle (something I’d never heard of!)
Rock cairn on the Cache La Poudre River

I was surprised to find White Pelicans in Colorado!
This one, as well as hundreds of others were hanging out at the Fossil Creek Reservoir in Fort Collins

Pied-billed Grebe
Western Grebe

Red-legged Grasshopper– one of hundreds at the Fossil Creek Reservoir

Musk Thistle
Swainson’s Hawk

Fossil Creek Reservoir is a huge tract of land! That’s me in the lower left corner!

Beautiful flowers and butterflies from the Colorado State Annual Trial Garden…

Aphrodite Fritillary (I think)

September 3-5

Estes Park, Colorado

As soon as we arrived in Estes Park, Mel headed to the fishing shops and I headed out looking for pictures to take. Surprisingly, the Knoll-Willows Nature Preserve is right in town and only a stone’s throw from where we parked! Within a minute or so of commencing my walk, I spotted a huge bull elk lounging in the underbrush along the edge of the preserve! A little farther down the sidewalk, were several of his girlfriends. Apparently, elk are a very common sight right in Estes Park!

Bull Elk lounging around right in downtown Estes Park!

The Girlfriends
Looking around for a snack

Hmmm. No dogs allowed. What’s up with that??

Teenage boy in Estes Park
Bull Daddy in Estes Park

In front of the Visitor’s Center at Estes Park, the Hummingbird Moths and the Hummingbirds were a delight to watch…

White-lined Sphinx Moth or Hummingbird Moth
Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Osprey with his catch of the day
Red-tailed Hawk

Barn Swallow
Pygmy Nuthatch

Least Chipmunk (look at the length of that tail!!)
Mountain Cottontail

September 5, 2019

Rocky Mountain National Park to Steamboat Springs

We spent the day driving through the scenic, breathtaking Rocky Mountain National Park to reach our second Colorado destination, Steamboat Springs. Mel and I stopped several times through the mountain route to take in all the spectacular views– but I never took any scenery pictures (they tend to be disappointing compared to the real thing), preferring instead to look for the smaller things like birds and butterflies and mammals.

Clark’s Nutcracker
(Clark’s Nutcrackers are mainly found in mountains at altitudes of 3,000–12,900 ft in conifer forests.)

Gold-mantled Ground Squirrel in the Rocky Mountains
This little critter looks a lot like a chipmunk but is much bigger– kind of like a chipmunk on steroids!

September 5-9

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

While Mel went fishing in the Yampa River, I went walking along the Yampa River Trail, a 7.5 mile multi-use trail that runs through the heart of Steamboat Springs and along the Yampa River. Along that trail, I found other points of interest like the Rotary Park Boardwalk and the Yampa Botanic Park, both of which were wonderful places for a quiet retreat as well as multiple picture opportunities.

Swift Moth
Two-striped Grasshopper

Black-billed Magpie along the Yampa River Trail

Cedar Waxwing
Osprey

Coronis Fritillary (I think) on coneflower

Yellow-rumped Warbler
bedraggled Robin
European Starling

Hollyhock
Yellow Warbler
Mourning Cloak butterfly

On one of the days that Mel didn’t go fishing, we took a drive up to Fish Creek Falls together for a picture walk and later spent hours at the Yampa Botanic Garden taking pictures of all the beautiful flowers, birds and visiting insects.

White-lined Sphinx Moth (or Hummingbird Moth) in the Yampa Botanic Garden

Townsend’s Warbler up near Fish Creek Falls

Stunning flowers from the Yampa Botanic Garden…

September 9-12

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Colorado Springs was our last destination in Colorado and we made the best of the time we had. As soon as we arrived on the afternoon of the 9th, we went for a picture walk in Palmer Park on a trail that turned out to be rockier and slipperier than we expected. Not many pictures got taken—we were too busy watching our footing!

Cassin’s Vireo (I think)
One of the few pictures I took at Palmer Park because I was too busy watching my footing!

The following morning we headed out to the Garden of the Gods, which is known for its enormous, awe-inspiring geologic formations, including tall rock spires or hoodoos, and steep cliffs. It’s a major tourist attraction and well worth the visit.

After our visit to Garden of the Gods, Mel dropped me off at the Bear Creek Nature Center to take pictures all afternoon while he explored the fishing shops, bookstores and coffee shops around Colorado Springs.

Vesper Sparrow
Woodhouse’s Scrub Jay

Spotted Towhee
White-breasted Nuthatch

Scrub Jay
Lesser Goldfinch and Pine Siskin

On Wednesday, our last full day in Colorado, Mel dropped me off at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo where I spent a delightful five and a half hours taking almost 800 pictures of the zoo animals and of the native birds that were flitting about in the nearby trees!

Baby Wallaby in his mama’s pouch– one of my favorite pictures from the zoo

This baby wallaby is around 7 months old and barely fits in the pouch anymore!
Here you see his head and legs sticking out!

Mom and baby wallaby hanging out together

The Wallaby baby hopped around for a few minutes before scurrying back to the safety of his mother’s pouch.

Emu
Giraffe

The meerkats were great fun to watch. They are both curious and comical!

The meerkat on the right walked into the scene, laid down and decided to strike this rather suggestive pose!
Their antics were so much fun to watch!

Moose
I had been hoping to see a moose in the wild in Colorado, but this is the closest I got!

Peacock wandering around in the zoo
Steller’s Jay at the zoo

Parakeets in the Budgie House at the zoo.

Okapi
Also known as the forest giraffe, Congolese giraffe, or zebra giraffe, native to Africa.

Male Wood Duck
Female Wood Duck

Porcupine taking a nap
White-backed Vulture (Africa)

The best part of going on vacation, besides getting away from every day routines, is finding things I’ve never seen before (and taking pictures!), eating things I’ve never tried before and meeting new people I’ve never met before.