This afternoon I noticed something wonderful on my climbing hempweed plants (a rather charming weed that I allow to grow cause the pollinators appear to love it). It was a black butterfly that I was not familiar with, it certainly wasn't a swallowtail, and by the way it was moving it looked like a hairstreak but it was way too large for one of those. Anyway I took some shots of it, hoping that they would aid me in my identification later.



As it moved around the hempweed I got more and more excited, this was a life lister for me, I had never seen one before and it was so beautiful.



I took a few shots of other butterflies, a coral banded hairstreak and a fiery skipper, then I went indoors and went about some chores that I had to do. An hour or so later I decided to go back out and check on my caterpillar farm and see if there were any other interesting butterflies on the hempweed, my heart sunk to my shoes when I saw this.



I know I shouldn't be upset, I know I shouldn't be cross at my spiders, after all I encourage them, and I enjoy them being there, if ONLY they would restrict their diet to grasshoppers and crickets. My heart was a little sadder after that despite my thought that at least I had got to see the butterfly before it had become prey for the spider, at least I saw it and photographed it. At least the butterfly enjoyed a day in the sun, feasting on nectar, and the spider, in her way, did her job, she is just gathering food to enable her to lay an eggcase. I suppose mother nature has her way, and sometimes I don't like it, sometimes it just really annoys me that in order to go along with mother nature you have to take the good with the bad, you have to take the triumphs of the birth of a butterfly with the tragedies of the death of one.