Come on Let's Crawl to the Butterfly Ball!

Lovely!! The common blue is gorgeous! I've got a plague of hoverflies too, in Perth! Not that I really mind them!

the hover flies are doing a good pollination job for us

Yep! Lots & lots of lovely seeds!!

Beautiful pics of the butterflies. :-)

Thanks David

lovely photos. and the fungi are starting to come into there own too.

Thank you for showing these photos. I wish we had more butterflies here but the last few years I've only seen a few cabbage whites. I saw a half dead peacock one last year aswell. It must be nice to live so near those woods.

It is, well are so lucky where we live... mountains an hours drive away, sea 15 minutes drive, can walk out the door and start walking in nature.

Sounds like my idea of heaven MG!

I'm surrounded by mountains on the edge of a national park but we have very few butterflies. Before I moved here I lived in a very wooded area. Maybe that's why there were so many different types there. There's a lot of farm land around here and I think the farmers are killing them off.

We seem to have a lot more butterflies than usual this year... especially the peacocks - perhaps this is another result of global warming?

Nice blog and pics MG

Thx.

How 'common' is the Common Blue, Moon Grower? I've never ever seen one, and I'd so love to! We've not had as many Red Admirals this year, and I've only spied a couple of Peacocks on my patch.
Loads of bumble bees, hoverflies and wasps, though...but it's also been a bumper year for apples, so I suppose what goes around ( bees pollinating hence lots of fruit setting ) comes around ( lots of fallen apples for the wasps and hovers to feed on! )
Lovely blog, really enjoyed it, thank you!

Blues are usually associated with chalk downlands so only common in certain areas, I think there is one which favours coasts and is a little more widespread bu theyre NOT and never have been "common" to the whole country, fallen plums are a fav of R admirals B.

Like Indy says the 'common blue' isn't common at all... just happens to like this neck of the woods. No chalk anywhere near here. The trees were planted to keep the moving sands of the Culbins under some form of control. There is at least one village buried there.

During WWII it was used by the military to practice bombing for the invasion of France. To this day you can still find live ordinance there - the bomb squad just goes in and blows up anything that is found.

Ah! Thank you, both, for the info. Doesn't look like I'll have much chance of sighting a Not-So-Common Blue up here then!
But how the RA's will love my fallen plums, once the trees are in, matured and fruiting! Can't wait!

Well I live on the Moray coast so you never know Bscott you might just see them.

Local cartoonist drew something like the hoverflies in #6, dubbing it "Happy Hour at the Stamen & Pistil"!

Ah... yes at least I 'think so'!

Pretty pics...nominated for GoYpedia Butterflies. :o)