I was thrilled yesterday when I spotted this Red-spotted Purple butterfly (Limenitis arthemis astyanax), which brought to mind the two things that bothered me about this butterfly last year when I first encountered it.
The first thing is that the name makes no sense at all—there is not purple at all in the Red-spotted Purple butterfly. Secondly, I recalled that it was almost impossible to get a photogenic background with this butterfly. Bugguide notes that adult butterflies of this type take moisture from mud puddles, rotten fruit and animal feces and last year I always found them in the latter situation. I guess I should be happy that the background for these photos was a concrete path!
I took these shots with my telephoto zoom at close to 400mm and realize the limitations of the lens for this type of shot. Most significantly, I couldn’t get close enough to be able to frame this better and the size of the lens limited my agility, the more so because I had it on a tripod. Still, I am happy to capture colors like this that always help to brighten my day.
Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
Maybe whoever named it was color blind like me-I see a lot of purple, but that tells me it is probably blue because I’m forever getting the two mixed up.
Oh my gosh. That is so beautiful.
Thanks. This early in the year, it was an even more welcome sight for me.
Amazing photos and I love the background. Butterflies have to rate right next to dragonflies and hummingbirds on the difficulty scale; really great photos.
Looking good. With a bit more practice maybe you can get it to land on even more photogenic spots.
Are you at a park? Can you take fruit with you to chop up for the butterflies to get more photogenic shots of them and other insects? I can understand how beautiful butterflies on excrement might not be the photo contrast you are looking for.
Thanks for the idea. There is such a randomness to seeing butterflies for me, especially this one, that it would be tough to implement your proposed plan. For some other butterflies, I think I have identified some preferred plants and flowers, so it’s less of an issue.
Your photos really show how beautiful these butterflies are! 🙂 Ive been waiting for butterflies and dragonflies here, and today for the first time this year I saw some butterflies!
I guess that we’re a little ahead of you here, with some dragonflies and butterflies already flying around.
I do see a faint tinge of purple in shot #2. I’ve seen some of these that have more orange-red spots than this one; maybe it’s a dietary thing. Despite the background, they are still gorgeous photos.
Thanks, Sue. I’m just really happy to see butterflies and chased a few this past weekend (mostly Cabbage Whites). I love the colors of this butterfly and am happy with the shots too, especially because I did not get any decent ones last year.
Beautiful photograph. It is confusing when the common names don’t turn out to be as accurate as you would expect.
I’m starting to get used to the idea that common names for plants, animals, birds, and insects are not always accurate, though occasionally it does make identification really complicated.