Wildlife: New Cardinal Family - Part 2 in Series, 1 by DreamOfSpring

DreamOfSpring wrote:
Now with all this sadness, I'd like to turn things around for a moment and relay to you an event that I left out earlier because with the cardinal family growing in leaps and bounds there was never time. Now I must appologize as this is not about the cardinals, but it relates to their saga if only loosely.

Remember the day when the mockingbirds were in the arbor, frolicing about with their own spring enthusiasm? As I was standing there scolding them for bothering Mrs Cardinal, an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail was flitting about the area from flower to flower. Apparently the butterfly became too focused on the plethera of roses before him and failed to see the 2 mockingbirds perched atop the arbor and amidst the roses. In an instant, as the butterfly ventured too close, one of the mockingbirds snatched him right out of the air. I had never seen anything like this before and had never considered that the sweet little birds might be eating the lovely butterflies. At any rate, the whole thing happened so fast, but I can still see the butterfly's wings fold and begin to collapse as the mockingbird pulled him in....and then, in an instant, just as quickly as the bird had caught him the butterfly flew away - free from the predator, free to live another day, free to continue his trek through the garden from flower to flower.

I marveled at what I had seen, how quickly it had all happened, how the picture of the folding wings stuck with me. Pondering all of this, I could only imagine that the butterflies wings had torn and thus freed him from the deadly clutch of the bird. I hoped that he had not suffered fatal wounds.

Sunday, shortly before the birth of the 1st baby bird, as I was in the garden taking photos, I tried in vain to get a picture of a butterfly. For some odd reason, he was extremely unwilling to let me get at all close to him as he visited the flowers. Finally, I settled for a quick pic from across the yard as he settled on the blooms of the small crabapple tree. I had not expected much to come of such a distant shot.

Later that evening as I downloaded my pics, I was surprised at the crisp focus of that off-hand and distant butterfly pic (shown below).