A Tortoiseshell, a Mourning Cloak and a Very Smelly Plant

Butterflies are beautiful and fragile – right? Well, they are indeed beautiful, but fragile? There have been butterflies out for a couple of weeks now, but today was the first day that I captured any in a photo. Compton Tortoishell and Mourning Cloak butterflies over winter as adults and emerge in early spring to stake out a “territory” and start the new generation of butterflies. Fragile does not seem adequate to describe a butterfly that survives the winter cold to emerge and survive into June as a reproductive adult.

Seeing the first butterfly of spring is an amazing spring tonic for the soul!

Spring Compton Tortoiseshell

An early spring Mourning Cloak

The ground is thawing everywhere now and one of the first spring plants to emerge is the Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanum)- a plant that definitely lives up to its name! You can often smell skunk-like odour of the plants before you come across the bright yellow spathes poking up from the wet ground. Skunk Cabbages provide their own version of a spring tonic – brilliant yellow is definitely a colour that belongs to spring and not to the winter just past.

A Skunk Cabbage emerging from the newly thawed swamp

A Skunk Cabbage Spathe

all photos and writing copyright J.A. Siderius