A Monarch…

Yes! I had to look up Monarchs on google to be sure, but that’s what visited the fire bush yesterday. Any glance out the sliding glass doors gives me a view of the back corner where the hummingbird visits, so as you can imagine I look out and hesitate for a second or two to be sure nothing is moving in the foliage many times a day. And yesterday this was what was moving out there. Oh yay, finally a butterfly when I had originally said I was picking flowers with bees and butterflies in mind. Random butterflies sail through the yard often, but rarely stop, even to land on the bougainvillea that is covered in flowers most of the time. So not only did it provide a photo op for me, (let’s face it, photo ops are what started this whole backyard adventure), but it chose the most color-coordinated flowers to visit. Be still my heart!

Not only could I grab the camera and open the sliding glass door and the screen door without him flying away, but I could also walk out back a ways and zoom for a very nice close up.

He didn’t seem bothered by me at all, but I’m glad I had the nice zoom lens on the camera so I didn’t have to get too close.

I took lots more photos but they all look the same, except when they were out of focus or had foliage moving through the shots. I’m not sure I ever actually saw a monarch before. Gulf fritillaries are close lookalikes and far more common to see. This was a happy day for me.

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