Could it be?

Wildlife watchers (or at least this wildlife watcher) always hope to see rare species, and today I had the fleeting thought that I might actually be seeing an endangered butterfly, the Karner blue. This particular butterfly lays its eggs only on the wild lupine (Lupinis perennis), which generally lives in oak savannas, an ecosystem that has become rare. I am not sure that the meadow at the Wintergarden Preserve in Bowling Green, Ohio, is in fact an oak savanna, but it is home to nice swaths of lupine, which today were in full bloom.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Karner blues do not typically emerge until late May, but many plants (and perhaps caterpillars?) have been early this year. Certainly, there were quite a few little bluish-grayish butterflies flitting among the lupines.

A girl can hope.