Nature can be a crafty magician at times, one quite capable of hiding itself in plain sight from the casual observer.
I am fascinated by nature if truth be told, and this fascination is compounded ten-fold by how much of nature is actually around us and we oftentimes don’t even see it.
Last week, I took a walk around the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge nature trail, a scenic walkway offered to the public located adjacent to the refuge visitors center, and was reminded once again how nature can hide from us right in plain sight if we aren’t looking for it.
On my travels around the nature trail, I spotted an incredibly small butterfly hovering around a tiny patch of flowers just a few inches off the concrete trail.
Naturally, my curiosity was peaked and I had to investigate.
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It ended up being a western pygmy blue butterfly, one of the smallest butterflies in the world and the smallest butterfly in North America.
The tiny butterfly was feeding on what I am thinking is an aster flower, a native wildflower to the area.
Western pygmy blue butterflies are quite commonly found on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route during late summer.
I have found and photographed plenty of them on the auto loop over the years, but they are indeed hard to find as well as to photograph due to their incredibly small size.
Today was no different, as it is always a challenge to photograph such small creatures in nature.
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I ended up laying down on the concrete sidewalk with my camera just a few short inches away from the flower, waiting for the perfect image.
To other visitors, I must have looked like some kind of nut, laying on the ground with my camera pointed at a small flower, but that is actually what I am referring to here.
Nature can hide right in front of us, just a few short feet away, in fact, and we may never see it.
That is why I take the photos I do, regardless of how silly I look at the time, hoping to show just how cool nature is and how much of it is around us that we many times over never see.
You really have to watch and pay attention to find the western pygmy blue butterfly if you want to see one. They are incredibly small, about half the size of a dime.
But if you keep your eyes open and watch for them, they can be found as well as photographed.
I love finding small but very fascinating things in nature like this, stuff most other people walk right by and never, ever see.
It’s actually one of the driving factors for this blog, hoping to help show how interesting nature really is and how close some of it is to us, many times just a few feet away or so.
So no matter where you are, keep an eye open for some of nature’s most interesting creatures that can and do hide right in plain sight.
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We get out on the refuge as much as possible but also visit many other places we find of great interest as well, always with my camera and desire to share what I find along the way.
For more information about butterflies, we have and frequently use the book “A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America” by Jeffrey Glassberg.
It has helped me in learning about and identifying the butterflies I find on the Bear River Bird Refuge and elsewhere on my travels.
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