Our "Flutterby" Visitor

This afternoon W came running to me saying "Mama!  Flutterby!  Mama!  Flutterby!" and led me to the door of our balcony where we saw this beautiful butterfly checking out each plant in our little container garden.

It first decided to rest in the parsley, but took flight when we went out on the balcony.  It didn't leave the balcony however while we were out there, but it also, understandably did not land on anything either.  It was so beautiful to watch it fly  around though. We sat and watched it and tried to take pictures of it for a while before I ushered W back into the apartment.  The above picture was the only one I was really able to get of the butterfly in flight.

After we came back inside I noticed that the butterfly settled on one of my geraniums for quite a while and I was able to take several pictures first through the glass door and then I cracked the door just slightly open and was able to get some better shots.

In all our visitor stayed on or near our balcony for about half an hour and we really enjoyed watching it!  We used butterflies during Easter as a symbol of resurrection with a caterpillar wrapped in a silk cocoon and then turning into a beautiful butterfly in our Lenten/Easter garden.  I'm not sure how much W understood that but he does know that he still has butterflies on his nature table tree and was very excited to see a real one out on our own balcony.

This first "flutterby" visitor came before our butterfly bush is blooming and when all of our rose bush blossoms had been picked.  I hope as the summer progresses we will have more of these visitors to our little garden.