For some reason I usually want to think of butterflies only lazily flitting around from flower to flower in wide green meadows along meandering, slow-moving streams, or in carefully tended gardens which display large varieties of blossoms for their pleasure, and I know they often do, but more of them than I had thought, like this little guy, live in far different environments.
Variegated Fritillary, Euptoieta claudia
It was found in a small, open area along this trail,
a dozen miles from the valley floor, high among the firs and cedars in the Cabinet Mountains where the winters come early and even in summer the night-time temperatures are always cool.
Come to think of it, maybe, like a man, it’s better off there.
