by Carl Strang
The warming weather has produced the first wave of insects at Mayslake Forest Preserve. These early-season adults overwintered in that form or in the stage just prior, or in some cases, migrated from the South.
This individual gave me a rare opportunity to photograph it in such a way as to show off its diagnostic purple forehead. The slender legs have the strength to hold the dragonfly to its perch.

Though I think of the eastern tailed-blue as a late-summer butterfly, that is the second generation of the year. Here is one of the early-season firsters.
The preserve harbors two host plants for the caterpillars: white wild indigo, a desired native prairie species, and the unwanted crown vetch, an introduced invasive.