I’m a guy who searches for eyes. Mine are blue, but that has nothing to do with this now. I travel much, to find butterflies with extraordinary eyes. When I find a butterfly with outstanding ‘eyes’ I will follow it until I can score alot of images. It’s all about getting exposures with comely, sharply focused eyes.

Eyes on the head of the butterfly? No. We’re after the ‘eyes’ found on the wings of many species of butterflies. They’re in italics because those are not the eyes that see. They are instead decorations on the wings. Their reason for being there has been much discussed, but there is no sure determination of why butterflies have retained their wing’s eyes for those thousands of years?

A trip of several days may be declared a major success if I’ve gained several good exposures of butterfly wings sporting great ‘eyes.’

This Wood Nymph butterfly rang my Alert! bells when I saw it. That large forewing ‘eye’ was crisp, prominent and film worthy. The smaller ‘eyes’ strung along next to it along sung to me.

I remember several people I have run across in my life, people with strikingly remarkable eyes, as that Afghan girl on the cover of National Geographic some years ago. Another, that girl who walked into my Biology HS classroom back at that Pittsburgh high school. From September to June, I was transfixed by them.

Winged beauties often stop such as us in our tracks, The Eyes! The Eyes!

Clay Pond, very western New York State.

Jeff