The other morning, when I first entered the Prairie Meadow, I came upon this lovely Black Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio polyxenes) hanging on to a prairie grass stem. He seemed to be “frozen” to the grass. And my stumbling around in the low light (this image was taken just before sunrise) didn’t seem to distract him, even when I hit the grass with the leg of my tripod! The morning temperature was in the upper 50’s, so the low temperatures and dew were likely not conducive for him to fly off. So I snapped a few images of him, then proceeded through the meadow to where I was going to photograph some prairie birds. Here is an image of him in the early morning:
After shooting wildflowers and birds for a couple of hours, I walked the perimeter of the meadow until I reached my starting point. Curious if the Black Swallowtail was still there, I walked a bit further and sure enough, he was still on the grass stem, but this time was fully “awake”:
As you can see, he now had his wings out and was content to sit quietly on the stem, soaking up the warm rays of sunshine. I took a few images, then moved in closer. But as I moved in, he quickly fluttered off … guess he had “defrosted” :o)