For One Man, Best Friend a Butterfly

By Kate Rockwood, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 24, 2008 1:56 PM CDT

(Newser) – Walking in DC last summer, Dan Southerland felt a butterfly land on his shoulder—where it stayed perched for the next few hours, as he ducked first into a photo store to document his fluttery friend, then into a steakhouse, and finally on a taxi ride to his suburban home, where he named it Poppy. The unusual friendship lasted for more than a month, he writes in the Washington Post.

Each night at dusk, Southerland returned to his yard and the red admiral, who would zip and fly in dizzying circles, landing on Southerland’s head or glasses and resting there. Though the red admiral is among the friendliest of butterflies—Vladimir Nabokov once called it “a most frolicsome fly”—an expert dubbed the daily greeting “really, really unusual.” But for Southerland, unusual or not, his feelings "were approaching love for this small creature."

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Red admirals are known as some of the friendliest butterflies. (Flickr)

Vladimir Nabokov once called the red admiral a "frolicsome fly" because of its friendly, elaborate dance. (Flickr)

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Red admirals basking in the gardens of Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, UK. (YouTube)

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At least one DC butterfly managed to escape that fate, take a taxi ride out of town and survive to have the time of his life in the suburbs. And for 37 days, so did I. - Dan Southerland

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