Today we had a very special nature blessing...an up close and personal interaction with a Great Spangled Fritillary butterfly!  Alex brought him to me, and I quickly realized that he seemed to have an injured wing and wasn't going to fly off.  Which meant we were going to get an amazing opportunity to observe him closely.  I was able to get several super photos!  I'm guessing that he was a male because the females are supposed to be darker, but I'm not sure.  Notice his beautiful leopard and tiger like spots and stripes?

We put him on one of our potted plants on our deck and he took right to the Marigold flower.  And then we got to see the most amazing thing!  He reached out his proboscis and took a nice long drink of nectar from the Marigold!  I felt so fortunate to get a photo of this!  Can you see the proboscis sticking into the center of the flower?  Doesn't his warm colors look so beautiful on that Marigold?!  And notice the little tiny fuzzy hairs on his back?  Click on the image below to enlarge.

And here was what we thought was the most beautiful thing about him...notice those spots on the undersides of his wings that appear white in the photo?  They are actually metallic silver...simply radiant in the sunlight!  If I didn't know better, I would have thought he was putting on a show for us!  He was so calm acting, not the slightest bit intimated or nervous acting.  Almost like he knew we were friends.

He was so friendly, it was like he was hugging my fingers!  How sweet!  See his cute little antennae and cool looking eyes?  I'm sensing a unit study coming on for us, we want to know more!

And guess what?  Right after taking all these photos, we discussed how if he was injured we would have to try and take care of him.  As soon as those words rolled off our tongues, he took flight and flew away beautifully!

Hmmm, just maybe he was staying because he wanted to?  Thank you Lord for our beautiful, and very sweet, visitor today!

"How many are your works, O LORD!  In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures."

~ Psalm 104:24