Mourning Cloak, Bear Canyon, Randell Davies Audubon Sanctuary, Santa Fe NM

Carol and I did some hiking yesterday morning while waiting for Anna to get out of work. We hiked the trail at Santa Fe Canyon Preserve (Nature Conservancy) and then the trail at the Randell Davies Audubon Sanctuary. It was a wonderful morning with good birds, wonderful scenery, and some interesting history of the Santa Fe watershed. At Randell Davies we took the short extension up Bear Canyon. I don’t know what I expected, but I certainly was not expecting butterflies on this brisk March morning with patches of snow still on the trail in the mountains of Santa Fe. Yet, as we reached the end of the maintained trail in Bear Canyon, high up among the Ponderosa Pines, a Western Tiger Swallowtail came up off the ground by the stream and went high into the trees (as they will do). Then, a few yards beyond, a Mourning Cloak (the one in the pic) came floating down above the stream. It eventually landed so I could get some shots. Finally, either a Comma or a Question Mark (I did not get a shot of the closed wings so I can not say which it was) followed the same route down the stream. We saw the same, or additional, Mourning Cloaks further down the main trail. Butterflies!

Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 125 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for scale in Lightroom.