Brown and blue, part one

In between leaving Germany and returning to Washington, I spent several days traveling around Poland.  On one of those days, I went on a walk with my mother through her childhood "backyard".

A field of grasses and wildflowers in southern Poland.

Although it was necessary to race along in order to keep ahead of the onslaught of mosquitoes, I couldn't resist stopping frequently to photograph the impressive diversity of insects (click here for the photo album) and wildflowers.  Consequently, I ended up with both many photographs and many mosquito bites. 

Some of the wildflowers we saw in the fields.

Almost as numerous as the mosquitoes, and considerably more attractive, were the blues:

A female blue (Polyommatinae) butterfly, either the silver-studded blue (Plebejus argus) or the Idas blue (Plebejus idas).

From the name, one might expect that the wings of these butterflies would be blue...

A female blue with her wings spread open, showing the brown tops.

... yet they were distinctly brown, not blue at all.  To be continued...