Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Great Purple Hairstreak, 1 by konkreteblond

konkreteblond wrote:
Woohoo! Finally a new butterfly for me!! I've had the usuals, which I do love, but it's always exciting to see a new one!

I was just wasting a few minutes yesterday evening before a big storm hit and walked around my yard. I was in front taking some pics then went to the back and spied this on my Queen Anne's Lace.

At first I wasn't sure what I was looking at (it doesn't help that my contacts s**k) so I started taking some pics and trying to figure it out. Was it a butterfly? It's not a BST. I know this sounds stupid but I wondered "is it a spider?" Does a spider have a butterfly?! There were "things" moving like legs but then the whole thing moved. What? LOL...

Anyways...upon much closer inspection I saw that it's wings constantly moved in a rubbing motion, back and forth. It made the little tails move and look like a spider or some other insect moving!

It didn't seem to notice me but I sure didn't want to scare it off without being able to get a look at it and at least a good pic so I took some from as close as I wanted to get.

Within the next hour we were hit with a huge thunderstorm with extremely high winds (some tornados) and torrential rain. I sure hope it found a hiding place because I can't imagine it surviving otherwise.