This is a sad photo. Most of you probably remember that last week, before it turned cold (and snowy!), red admirals were migrating into this area by the hundreds of thousands. There is probably not a soul in the city who didn't have at least a few of these butterflies flutter past, even if they didn't see them. But once the rain, winds, cold temperatures, and snow arrived, the butterflies were, not surprisingly, nowhere to be seen. In today's Ottawa Citizen, there was speculation that as many as 90% of the red admirals could have died. I was therefore happy to see two red admirals today. One in the Arboretum, and this one at FWG. As you see, it is in a spruce tree. It appeared in a brief sunny break but some rain was starting to fall and as it did, this butterfly flew straight into a spruce and began walking delicately along the branches until it got quite far in and after some moving around, folded its wings and sat still. Just at that moment, the skied opened again. So perhaps some have survived by just this sort of protective behaviour. This one was very tattered and torn, however.