I found this butterfly when I was weeding this morning. It was very sluggish, and had its antennae folded back under its wings for a long time -- perhaps it was newly come from its chrysalis? It kept its wings closed for some minutes, even as I picked off the sprig it was resting on, and carried up to the house, admiring the beautiful mottled black and brown and tan of the underside of its wings, like the cross-section of a sedimentary rock -- then it suddenly dropped its wings open to reveal the orange stripes.
This is a red admiral (Vanessa atalanta). I regret to say that our back yard has quite a lot of stinging nettles -- or had, before this morning -- although apparently the upside is that the red admiral caterpillar is quite fond of them.
(The pictures are a bit blurry ...)
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