Butterflies are arguably some of the most beautiful creatures on earth – their delicate wings, intricate patterns, vivid colors, graceful flight – so when I saw a group of gorgeous butterflies doing one of the grossest things I’ve ever seen, I was confused.

After I started raising butterflies, I began to see them everywhere. I get excited when I spot the flutter of a wing and grab for my phone to document the experience. But when I went to the beach this weekend, I was not expecting an opportunity to observe butterflies. Sandy beaches and wavy lakes don’t seem like a place a butterfly would like to hang out – they want flowers, right? But when my daughter pointed out to me a yellow butterfly down the beach, I had to investigate.

As we got closer, we saw more bright yellow butterflies with black stripes. They were eastern tiger swallowtails, a species whose host plants are trees like wild black cherry, ash, and tulip trees. I’ve seen some around my house, but always a solitary butterfly zipping by high in the trees. As we inched closer, we saw that the butterflies weren’t flying away from us. They were too busy puddling.

 Puddling is when a butterfly, typically male, drinks fluids aside from sugary nectar, in an effort to obtain essential salt and minerals that will help them produce healthy babies. These can be minerals from the earth, and indeed, we did see some puddling on wet sand. But by far, the main attraction for these eastern tiger swallowtails was a stinking dead fish that had washed up on the shore.

This didn’t jive with my learned experience. I’ve seen plenty of beautiful butterflies drinking from equally beautiful flowers. Never had I seen so many brilliant butterflies all feeding on rotten bodily fluids.

The phone photographer in me needed to take pictures. They were so absorbed in the task at hand that they didn’t even fly away when my five year old tried to show them how she can snap her fingers. Surely, I’d never get this close again.

But lacking professional skills and equipment, I realized there really was no way to get around the dead fish. I took pictures from different sides, from different angles, and I tried to blur out the background, yet somehow, the putrefied flesh managed to star in every shot.

Maybe I could call out to my Instagram photographer friends, “Help! How can I crop out the decaying fish to make this picture perfect?” But then the realization came: I don’t need to erase the dead fish; I need to embrace it.

Could “embrace the dead fish” be my new mantra? To me, it means accepting the flaws we all have. Even without the rotting carcass, the butterflies were never going to be perfect. Their wings had tears or were missing portions, but that shows the life they’ve lived. We’re all vulnerable, we’re all worn down, and dare I say, we all have a dead fish in our lives? That part of life that isn’t glamorous, but an essential piece that makes us who we are.

If I had tried to present the butterflies without the dead fish, it would have been just one more nice picture of a few butterflies on my phone. It’s the dead fish that makes the story.

Caitlin Gerds Habermas raises butterflies and shares her experiences on RaisingBackyardButterflies.com, YouTube, and social media.