Just about everyone who lives in this area, down through New York state and south, knows about the several waves of migrating red admiral butterflies moving northward by the hundreds of thousands. It is a phenomenon that has not been seen for decades. Today I decided to check stinging nettle plants to see if any of the many admirals had laid eggs on them (nettle is the larval food plant for this species), and indeed they had. On a large stand of nettle I counted 70 tiny pale green eggs like the one in this photo, and that was not a complete count by any means as I only checked about 30% of the leaves!