Fiery passion

Fiery passion: while that title may sound like it belongs on a different kind of website, the description is accurate because these mating butterflies happen to be fiery skippers, Hylephila phyleus. You can see that this species is sexually dimorphic; the somewhat smaller male is on the left.

I took today’s photograph, the first of this species to appear here, on undeveloped land in my neighborhood on February 19th.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman