Like a lot of things this year, the Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies were exceptionally late in emerging and reclaiming the meadow across the street. But in the past few days, I've started seeing a few of these gorgeous lepidopterans on the wing, and when I braved the high grass in my neighbor's field, my probably foolhardy boldness in wading into tick country was rewarded with finding a stand of Milkweeds in full bloom... and a surprise: a group of Fritillaries nectaring on the flowers. Usually, I expect to see Monarchs on the flowers, along with Swallowtails, but the "Frits" weren't reading my notebook and were definitely taking advantage of this source of fuel. Monarchs are the only butterfly species around here that have figured out a way to have their caterpillars use Milkweed leaves, which are toxic and exude a potentially lethal latex, as food, but I'm guessing that the nectar can't be quite so poisonous, since, clearly, a number of lepidopterans, most of them not known to be immune to the milkweed toxins known as cardenolides, were at the Asclepias Truck Stop. This Fritillary seems to have been in a recent accident, to judge by the missing sections of its wings. No doubt, a close encounter with a bird predator... but, fortunately for the observer and the observed, the hunter's aim was a bit off.