Large Skipper

I took these pictures of a large skipper butterfly at the very beginning of June and forgot to post them, until I was prompted by recent reports that this spring has seen the exceptionally early appearance of many butterfly species.

A close look at these pictures shows that this butterfly must have been around for a few days by the time I photographed it, judging by some wear-and-ear on the wing edges and loss of some of the darker scales on the wing edges, so I'd guess that it must have emerged in the last week of May. I can't recall having seen a large skipper around here much before about mid-June, so this must indeed have been an unusually early example.