"Probably my best butterfly species of the summer (well, the best one I got a photo of. The Ze*bra Swallow*tail in E PA was pretty exciting, but no photo.) Uncommon in NJ, and well out of its typical habitat as well. This is a wetland species, but it was found close to 0.5 mi from the river, and almost 1.5 mi from the nearest substantial Phragmites marsh (one of its larval foodplants -- and something we unfortunately have in great abundance). Rick and I had walked into town on this beautiful summer day for our usual weekend brunch, and on the way back we stopped at the butterflybushes on 2nd Ave for our usual weekend check. A Sachem or two, a Silver-spotted Skipper, ho hum, and then Rick (bless his sharp eyes -- and he's not even the butterfly nut in the family) said innocently ""that's different, what's that?"" It was BIG for a grass skipper, almost as big as the Silver-spotted; and rather inconspicuous, walking methodically over a single flower head. Unfortunately, I hadn't brought my camera! That'll learn me. So when we got back home I got out my field guide -- and then I got out my camera and my car keys. Got back to the butterflybush. No skipper. Well, I hoped maybe she'd had a nice meal and was off digesting, and would be back for seconds sometime soon. So I hung around for 20 min or so, took some pics of a tattered Eastern Tailed-blue for the sake of entertainment, kept checking over both of the bushes there, and lo and behold, just when I was about to give up, there she was -- and here she is. Incidentally, taking the car almost came back to bite me. I had parked it across the street, and wouldn't you know, it ended up in the backdrop of my best shot! But I was able to rotate the shot so that I could crop out the car."