The Butterflies of Black Friday

I remember a number of Black Fridays here in upstate NY with snow on the ground.  I don't remember a whole lot that were partly sunny with temperatures close to 60 degrees. 

Nor do I remember a lot of Black Fridays where I saw butterflies.  But, I saw butterflies today.  Three of them, to be exact.

Two of them are in this picture.  It will be almost impossible for you to see them. They are perched, wings closed, on either side of a dandelion and they blended into the yellow flower.   My guess is that one was a male and one was a female.  One had a couple of visible black spots.  the other seemed to have a border around its wings.

I took this one on maximum zoom (my camera has only a 3x optical zoom ) and then tried to get closer.  My attempt was unsucessful as I'm not exactly light on my feet - they were scared off and went flying away.

Speaking of camouflage, later in the walk I saw a rabbit.  Try to find the rabbit.  It (he? she?) is in the lower left hand corner.

Still later, I saw a large brown butterfly.  And when I got home and tried to sit in the back yard, I was buzzed by mosquitoes. 


What an unusual Black Friday. We didn't even know if we would be able to get to the Rail Trail with the Black Friday traffic, but we didn't have any problems.  I'm glad I was off of work to enjoy the day.


Tomorrow - it is supposed to be as mild as today.  Unbelievable.


Does anyone have a guess as to what these butterflies are?  Or what a "large brown butterfly" in late fall in Upstate NY may have been?