My First Ever Mourning Cloak Butterfly!

This winged beauty is Nymphalis antiopa, called the mourning cloak in North America, and the Camberwell beauty in Britain. :-)

On this day, it was a bit cool and damp when we awoke, and so we decided to spend the day in the deep green woods instead of going swimming (which had been our original plan).

We drove north of Snow Show, PA, to the Sproul State Forest, where we did a five-mile (eight-km) hike, which wound down through the woods to a spring we know, where fresh, cold, delicious, drinkable water bubbles up through the rocks.

A few of the delights of this particular day in the deep woods:

We saw a mama wild turkey and several babies. Now, I don't know how rare this is, but I've lived in Pennsylvania for all of my 48 years (and I plan to live out the rest of my years, whatever number that may be, in this place), and I don't think I've ever seen baby turkeys before!

While resting and taking a break along a stream that runs through a pine glen, I looked up to see a HUGE green butterfly coming directly at me! Except that then I heard the whir of tiny wings - it turned out to be a huge hummingbird, not a butterfly! Possibly coming down to check out the red on our chairs. More likely there to enjoy the nectar from the rhododendron blossoms, which bloomed in profusion along the creek. Deep-woods hummingbirds! Who'd have thought it?

That ice-cold mountain spring? Why, yes, of course I just HAD to doff my hiking boots and wool socks, and dip my little toesies in the bone-chillingly cold water. Kudos to that wise dude who once said: "Time is but the stream I go a-wading in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains." OK, so what he actually said was that he went fishing in it, but that's close enough. (With all apologies to Thoreau, whose quote I just mangled a bit.)

On the hike back to the car, I saw a dark splotch on the ferns. And looked closer to discover this mourning cloak butterfly, a first-ever sighting for me! Hooray!

I love the colors on this butterfly's coat, and the song that I was reminded of to accompany this blip is the wonderful Dolly Parton song, Coat of Many Colors. The linked version is performed by Dolly Parton and Shania Twain. Oh, and their back-up band? Alison Krauss & Union Station. Coolness!

P.S. If I ever get to Heaven, I want to be put in charge of painting the colors on the butterflies before they are released from Heaven to fly around on Earth. I think that's something I would really enjoy. :-) Yes, one could do worse than to be a painter of butterflies . . .