American Lady, home

Whenever I spot a butterfly whose identity I'm not certain of, I'm increasingly careful not to dismiss it as, well, in birdwatching terms, a "little brown job" impossible to ID. This lepidopteran could easily have wound up in the LBJ basket, and while I wasn't even sure, when I saw it, first in the leaf litter and then on a boulder, that I should even bother taking a picture, I'm quite glad I made the effort. For it turns out to be a fairly unusual species around here: an American Lady. These are abundant south of us, but they probably don't survive our winters and so, biologists suggest, the Ladies have to fly north each year to recolonize our area. Seeing one means the southern push is on this year, and maybe the heat wave is calling Vanessa virginiensis "home"—at least, to its summer home.