Painted Ladies in a different county!

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I'd seen some Painted Lady butterflies in my garden. It would appear that we've been invaded by them. Steve Gale at Northdownsandbeyond makes reference to them in his post where he'd seen them in his garden and where Graham had seen about 50 flying north through Ashdown Forest. Equally Frank at The Early Birder mentions that he saw a goodly number of them at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve in East Sussex.

Well - I was down in West Sussex today spending a day with my mother. "Oh look", says I "at all those Painted Ladies flying through the garden" We started counting 8; 10; 15; 20; 26; we carried on until we reached 50 and stopped counting and, spellbound we watched for several minutes. There were definitely in excess of 60 being blown along on the South West wind! Utterly amazing sight. Several of them stayed around in the garden and seemed to favour a patio area where many dandelions were growing. They also like the verbena in one of the hanging baskets! Magic!

And Jackie has just emailed me this link from the BBC news!






And whilst be entranced with all the flutters, I noticed a parent Dunnock up on the fence - having a preen.



It was then joined by a youngster and the adult flew off. I waited hoping for a feeding shot, but the parent didn't return whilst I was watching.


A bit of floral colour around Mum's garden.




Well given that I didn't expect to use my camera today, I was delighted to have another "back garden" wildlife adventure :D