I’ve seen many more Wiedemeyer’s Admirals this year than usual. I don’t usually take many photos of them because of their apparent lack of color.
I say apparent because their underwings are incredibly colorful. They also have those stunning red eyes and, if you look closely, you can even see tiny red and blue dots near the bottom of their overwings.
I was trying to take a photo of a Wiedemeyer’s Admiral several weeks ago, but it kept landing on me — my hand, my sleeve, and my cap. Finally it landed on my ear and walked around on it. It felt really weird. Normally, I do not want insects crawling on me. On the other hand, it was a butterfly. Which obviously “liked” me! So …
I carefully pulled my phone out of my pocket and forced it to focus on the butterfly. Sure enough, my admiral/admirer was really clear in the picture. Me? Not so much.1 I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I will say it was the first time I ever considered sinking some money into a phone with a decent camera.
I mentioned Wiedemeyer’s Admirals in passing about a week ago, in connection with the photo of an Arizona Sister.
I’m not a big fan of selfies in general, but this was such an unusual circumstance that I was compelled to save it for posterity.
Awesome Selfie!