Malachite butterfly

This gorgeous Malachite butterfly at the Calgary Zoo took my breath away when I first caught sight of it. While far less colourful, the pattern on the underside of the wings is beautiful, too.

"Siproeta stelenes, commonly known as the Malachite, is a neotropical brush-footed butterfly (family Nymphalidae). The malachite has large wings that are black and brilliant green or yellow-green on the uppersides and light brown and olive green on the undersides. It is named for the mineral malachite, which is similar in color to the bright green on the butterfly's wings. The wingspread is typically between 8.5 and 10 cm (3.3 and 3.9 in). The malachite is found throughout Central and northern South America, where it is one of the most common butterfly species. Its distribution extends as far north as southern Texas and the tip of Florida, to Cuba, as subspecies S. s. insularis (Holland, 1916), and south to Brazil.

Adults feed on flower nectar, rotting fruit, dead animals, and bat dung. Females lay eggs on the new leaves of plants in the Acanthaceae family, especially ruellia. The larvae are horned, spiny black caterpillars with red markings."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siproeta_stelenes

Was out all morning, east of the city, and was happy to see my first Black-necked Stilt of the year - also Avocet, Gadwall, Red-winged and Yellow-headed Blackbirds, and so on. We were lucky to see the rare, recently reported, Common Teal/Eurasian Teal. It was very distant, at first swimming away from us, and then in flight. Better to have seen this distant, almost-silhouette bird, than not at all, LOL. No chance for photos this morning - all birds were much too far away. Gorgeous day, though. Crazy Calgary weather - supposed to get up to 20C today and even 23C on Tuesday (I think). Later: yay!!! Got home a short while ago after calling in at the Fish Creek Park Open House and then driving west a short way and managing to find the Mountain Bluebird that had been reported within city limits. I had tried twice before, without luck - so, third time lucky!.