Garden butterflies

The last couple of weekends, I've spent quite a bit of time in my Brackley garden. Our mixture of Scabious, Buddleia, Globe Thistles and Marjoram have drawn in quite a selection of butterflies including numerous Large and Small White, a few Green-Veined Whites, Gatekeepers, Meadow Brown, Small Tortoiseshell, Holly Blues, Peacock, Red Admiral, Comma, a Brimstone and a Ringlet.









A couple of very unexpected oddities have also made appearances. Firstly I had an absolutely BONKERS sighting during the early evening of 15/07, as a female Purple Emperor cruised at rooftop height over my head! I stared open-mouthed at it for a few milliseconds, not able to calculate what it was. It then dawned at me, culminating in me just shouting at Em, "PURPLE EMPEROR, PURPLE EMPEROR!!!" An insane sighting and unsurprisingly a garden first.

On 07/07, I also had 2 Essex Skippers drop in for a few minutes, just allowing me enough time to grab a couple of photos before they were off on their way again.

I'm not the only one to have out of the ordinary butterflies visit my garden in recent weeks. In fact, there has been quite a spate of Purple Hairstreaks, Emperors and Fritillaries venturing away from their woodland home in a search for moisture and salts. Due of course to the now long-term scorching weather and lack of rain.