A-Z Challenge - Butterflies 'P'

P - Painted Lady, Peacock

These, as their names imply, are two of Britain's most colourful butterflies.

What's more they are frequent visitors to our Buddleia, aka Butterfly Bush, each summer.

Painted Lady

This Painted Lady however was sunning itself on the leaves of one of our Rhododendrons.

Its caterpillars are grey or black with yellow stripes on the side. They feed on may plants including thistles and nettles. 

The adult butterflies migrate and hibernate in the winter south of the Alps. Immigrants enter Britain from April. There are two or three broods between June and September

We often find a Peacock on the ground,

Peacock Butterfly (from our bedroom window)

However there is no doubt where they like the best,

On the Buddleia having driven off a Large White

They are happy of course to share a flower with others.

Peacock Butterflies on Buddleia

The brightly coloured eye-like markings on its wings are like the spots on a peacock's tail - hence its name.

When at rest the Peacock's eye-spot is hidden but when disturbed it opens its wings to display them and scare of any predatory birds.

Common throughout the British Isles they lay their eggs on nettles in April and May. Caterpillars are jet black and finely speckled with white. 

We saw our first Peacock this year on April 5th.

Peacock Butterfly Caterpillars

The butterflies emerge from the pupae from July and brighten the countryside until September or October. We will be looking out for them from when our Buddleia breaks into flower.

The Peacock also appears on a set of butterfly stamps issued by the Royal Mail.

Love is like a butterfly
As soft and gentle as a sigh
The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings
Love makes your heart feel strange inside
It flutters like soft wings in flight
Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing

I feel it when you're with me
It happens when you kiss me
That rare and gentle feeling that I feel inside
Your touch is soft and gentle
Your kiss is warm and tender
Whenever I am with you I think of butterflies

Love is like a butterfly
The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings
Love makes your heart feel strange inside
It flutters like soft wings in flight

Photo attribution:

• Peacock Butterfly Caterpillars: 28 June 2008, upload by Computerhotline, by Rictor Norton and David Allen - CC BY 2.0

A Hemulen's Collection - Sunday Stamps

This week theme of hobbies proved difficult for me until I came across the Hemulens, a species of characters created by the Finnish author Tove Jansson.

Hemulens tend to be obsessive characters devoting themselves to one interest - skiing, stamp collecting, butterflies or whatever. Does anyone recognise themselves?

It may have been a coincidence but in Saturday's Daily Telegraph an article appeared about the author Vladimir Nabokov who wrote 'Lolita.' Apparently Nabokov was an accomplished lepidopterist.

Now I had something to work with. I wouldn't say I am a Hemulen, but I have a butterfly or two.

USA Common Buckeye

Of course a lepidopterist is also interested in moths.

Romania - Saturnia pyri

The Saturnia pyri is a native of Europe, but not Britain, and is also known as the Great Peacock Moth or Giant Emperor Moth.

Mexico - Helasus

Malaysia

Malawi - Parasa moth

If I wanted to be obsessive about butterflies the one set of stamps I'd like are these from much nearer home.

Great Britain - Butterflies 1981

Shame that I have had to scan them from a catalogue. Oh well, I guess I shall have to remember the Tortoiseshell and Peacock flying round my garden in the summer.

Peacock butterfly on knapweed.

 

But now it's time to explore the hobbies from others on Viridian's Sunday Stamps 94

Grounded - Thematic Photography

We have had 36 hours of continuous rain and it's still raining; my golf course is waterlogged so I'm grounded today - Sob!

Carmi couldn't have come up with a more appropriate theme in the circumstances. I have a lot of my brother's WWII photographs which show grounded aircraft like this one in the desert (probably Egypt).

Grounded in the desert

I hope it landed intentionally; this one with a military connection certainly did.

Chalk-Fronted Corporal Dragonfly

This is the time of year in the UK for conkers, a lot of which you find on on the ground.

Horse Chestnuts (Conkers)

OK, so I cheated by throwing them on the grass.

Others though like the dragonfly can choose where they land.

Brown Butterfly and a Bee on Greater Knapweed

I'm sure you'll agree that this one has every right to show off.

Peacock Butterfly

Mind you this one from America is a contender in the grounded beauty stakes.

Red-spotted Purple Butterfly

It seems to have the wrong name as the spots on its wings are orange.

I'm pleased to take part this week and to be able to select subjects that can choose when to be grounded. Not all will have that honour on Carmi's thematic-photographic-214 as you can see.

Vibrant Nature - Thematic Photography

This is the second week in a row that I have set out to take photos to match the theme. At this time in the summer there is a lot of vibrancy to be seen in nature. Here are some things that caught my eye within three miles of my home.

The air was full of house martins and swallows and it seems that they are practicing for the departure for the warmth of Africa.

Swallows/House Martins on telelephone wires

Above them stretch high voltage power lines; how they miss them in flight remains a mystery to me.

The haws and sloes light up the hedgerows wherever you look.

Haws on a hawthorn hedge

Sloes

If nothing else a bottle of sloe gin should ensure you feel vibrant.

Farmyard Cow

She certainly was making her feelings known and no - she hasn't swallowed the fence.

Lesser Burdock

The burdock in a roadside verge has picked a spot where its burrs will get picked up by man or beast and deposited elsewhere for next year's vibrant plant.

Common Knapweed

Here the knapweed has atrracted a hoverfly and a battered Meadow Brown butterfly. Below an even more battered Comma.

Comma on knapweed

But there is now danger of mistaking this vibrant butterfly.

Peacock butterfly

This one however as had a rough time somewhere even if his colours are not dimmed.

Peacock with damaged wings

This intruder from abroad has taken over whole swathes of hedgerows with a mass of vibrant shades of pink.

Indian Balsam

This yellow flower may have a common name but farmers are meant to destroy it on their fields as it poisons cattle. It thrives however in hedgerows and on uncultivated land. Bees and hoverflys love it and help to maitain its vibrancy.

Ragworth

Coming full circle on my tour it's back to the vibrant power of the sun and that created by man.

Power Pylon

But let's not forget the energy stored in the crops beneath the high voltage power lines.

Wheat field

For further injections of vibrancy don't forget to visit Carmi's Thematic Photographic 159