Baltimore Checkerspot, Miner

I haven't been doing as much exploring as I'd like—I've just been awfully busy—but today I decided to reward myself with a trip to an old haunt, the Miner preserve. If nothing else, I wanted to see how the breeding colony of Bobolinks was doing and to look for the first Monarch butterflies in the swaths of milkweeds, both Common and Swamp, that the refuge shelters and nurtures. I found them all, as well as some surprises that, if I weren't so busy, I could write about: a pair of Kestrels, the first Halloween Pennant dragonfly, various milkweed insect specialists... you get the idea. This one, a Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly, was not exactly a surprise, but I wasn't exactly expecting it. Baltimores, so called for the resemblance of their coloration to that favored by the Lord who governed Maryland and gave his titled name to a great city, are hardly unknown at Miner, but they're not common and I don't spot them every year. Luck was with me today, and not only did I find a pair of the exquisite leps, they were inclined to pose. Praise be.