An encounter with Ms Atalanta

I’m sure some (most) of you are wondering what on earth this post is going to be about. I don’t blame you. Sometimes, titles for posts come into my head instantly. Other times, I just hit a brick wall. This time I was somewhere in between. And I think the origin of the title will make a few of you chuckle.

Whilst contemplating this pickle, I decided to look at the latin name for the subject of my post – the Red Admiral. Lo and behold, its latin name is Vanessa atalanta and so ‘Ms Atalanta’ came to be. And I really did have a lovely encounter with her recently!!!

Before I tell the story, I wanted to interject with some other, less enjoyable, encounters I’ve experienced with butterflies in recent days. For some absolutely unknown reason, they seem to enjoy coming through our open windows at the moment. I’ve had to rescue a couple already this week and yesterday I was frantically urging another one to leave the kitchen and go back out of the window (it was right next to the open window but didn’t seem to understand how to leave). Later in the day, I ended up having a similar conversation with another butterfly in the living room – this one appeared to have a better sense of direction and fluttered out quite quickly.

Now, back to the tale, I was having a bit of a bad day about a week ago. The heat really didn’t help and I just wanted to wrap myself up in a dark room and while away the time. Whenever I feel like this, it’s usually a sure sign that I should leave the house and have a walk!

So, although I had to physically drag myself to the door, that’s exactly what I did. I decided to head to the meadow on the edge of town. My partner and I often take evening walks here and we’ve been lucky enough to see green woodpeckers, greenfinches, red kites, and lots and lots of butterflies here. 

While I was walking, I ended up getting a bit lost in some anxious thoughts and wasn’t really taking in my surroundings. Then, out of nowhere, a red admiral butterfly landed on a leaf right next to me. I stopped my daydreaming and had a good look at it – they’re always so much bigger than I expect them to be! As I studied the bold black of its wings and the beautiful red and white markings, my mood started to lift.

I was truly very grateful to Ms Atalanta for this encounter. I certainly ended my walk feeling much, much better than when I started off. This is how I felt during ‘30 Days Wild’ in June and it definitely reminded me of the importance of nature for wellbeing. 

When I got home, I decided that this butterfly needed to be drawn. It’s been a busy week and the next couple of days are going to be pretty full-on due to A Level results day (and whatever else that brings…), but I finished my A5 red admiral yesterday. Although the vibrant red marking on the wings immediately catches your eye, I particularly enjoyed focusing on the range of colours in the ‘black’ sections – I say ‘black’ because I used about 4 different brown-ish, grey and black-ish pencils on those bits!

And, would you believe, the red admiral can migrate from places as far away as North Africa to brighten up our humid, stormy (currently) and/or cold (we’ve had some weird ones this year!) summer days??? I think I owe Ms Atalanta one!