1st Mourning cloak of 2014

I had just started out on a morning hike on a chilly day when something small and pretty caught my attention. And how could you miss it, really? This jewel of a butterfly is called, in this country, the Mourning Cloak, perhaps because of the rather somber color of its wings. But I think the British have a better name: the Camberwell Beauty, a reference to the town in which this emigrant from northern Europe was discovered more than 200 years ago. By whatever name, these butterflies, usually the first non-moths to appear in my area, are stunners. They overwinter as adults, hiding from the cold underneath tree bark and other shelters, and as soon as the weather is even moderately warm, some years as early as the beginning of March, they come back to life and fly in search of tree sap and mates. This one seems to have had some run-ins with birds; its wing margins bear evidence of beak marks. Maybe this happened last fall before the butterfly decided to call it quits for the season; maybe a predator attacked this very morning. The Mourning Cloak had survived, and since it was flying in the sunshine, it had nothing to mourn about.