Pine Siskin with Butterfly

Bit of a story here. I went out to take a photo of the Pine Siskin, having learned that they are pretty silly about not leaving when I walk right up to them - which seems a rather poor survival strategy - and when I got right up to the bird bath I could see that beneath the bird, in the water, was a small blue butterfly. The first butterfly of the season that I've seen and there it was, drowning. So I put my camera down and fished the poor thing out [the bird did leave at that point] and sat down on the front steps to have a look at it. It was immediately clear that it was still alive, so I transferred it from my wet fingertip to my knee where its wings could get the wet off via my sweatpants. I had to take a tiny pointy stick and unstick its antennae from its wings. And then I watched as it raised its wings and began carefully cleaning its feet and antennae and face and so forth. We sat there a good while, the butterfly and I. And then I took it over to a patch of daffodils to see if it would like to be on a flower. It seemed inclined to stay on my finger, but eventually I persuaded it to transfer to a leaf. And then it fluttered up to the Magnolia tree above the daffs! Success!! I must add, it looked very ragged. Probably reaching the end of its natural life. But at least it didn't drown. And maybe it can lay some eggs or something before dying. I think it might be a Silvery Blue - Glaucopsyche Lygdamus - although my little book is unclear on whether they might actually fetch up in my part of the US. It implies there are "local" populations here and there, so I suppose it might. The book says "widespread, but local" whatever that means, in northern Alabama, Georgia and north to West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The picture looks right for it - so I suppose it could have travelled to Virginia. Why not?

Anyway. There was also the bird which let me get far closer than it should have, imho. Oh, and I did change the water in the bird bath after all the drama was over. It wasn't really as dirty as it looks - it's the Maple tree above it, and the thistle feeder nearby that cause it to fill up with stuff constantly.