Marcie’s Facebook shared today was bubbling with excitement! There it was, the first Tawny Emperor butterfly that she ever saw in her active South Carolina garden. She had a beauty of a Tawny, and I made sure to stoke her enthusiasm, or at least hope I did. That led me to remembering Caron’s request last week. She asked that I, having seen her 5 ‘favorite’ images, come back with my 5 favs.

When Marcie offered up her Tawny, I realized that I too had a Tawny Emperor image that I loved, and that might well have been included in Jeff’s 5 favorites images.

This is it. When I saw this other worldly magnificent, it was resting in the weak sun of the early morning, on a trail marker post. I’d never seen one before, and me? I thought this was one of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever seen. I shot away, and maybe some 45 exposures later (film) have forever since loved this one.

It rests, well framed (museum glass) on the wall at the dining room table. I secured hand written calligraphy, done by a well remembered, and widely revered Rabbi. At my urging, in a beautiful Hebrew hand, he wrote a thought taken from the morning prayers, roughly meaning ‘How beautiful are G-d’s creations.’

Found wherever there’s a hackberry trees nearby, from New Hampshire to Florida, from Arizona to Wisconsin, give or take.

When I was flourishing in real estate in the ’80’s, I Loved to shop in upscale men’s stores in NYNY, and my favorites were brown hats, suits and brown shoes.

I have a real fondness for this image. Marcie and Caron evoked that, they did.

Jeff