This is a West Virginia White butterfly shot at the Wildflower Reserve of Raccoon Creek State Park. This delicate tissue-like gem is a species whose numbers have plummeted over the years as its habitat has continued to disappear. It’s found only in the early spring in flooded forest wetlands.

To examine and photograph them you have to get down into the wet, cold mud of their habitat.

Happily they allowed me to approach and marvel at their finely constructed wings and frame.

They stick around for just a few weeks and then are nowhere to be found!

How oh how do seemingly delicate butterflies survive in the wilds of their habitat? Isn’t this a fine example of the need to conserve all that we have now and prevent any further loss of diversity?

Jeffrey