Red Admiral butterfly

With the chilly weather persisting way past its time—although, hey, this is New England...—the butterflies that, by tradition, should be gracing both the flowers and the photographers, have been few and far between, as in, more or less completely absent. But it wasn't quite so wind-driven cold today and, in response, I notice the first lepidopteran that actually cooperated with my camera. It was a Red Admiral, a gorgeous creature with a distinctive red stripe on its dark wings. The butterfly is one of our earliest appearing leps, but is quite different in behavior than other early "birds," such as the Mourning Cloak and the various Blues. The Admiral is a navigator—an insect that, like the fabled Monarch, can't hack the frost and so heads every fall south to escape the winter. There, it breeds and raises a new generation that, if conditions are amenable, will point the compass north in May to summer and raise kids, all with a penchant for travel, in our neighborhood.