I was...

...cutting down some Buddleia today which I thought had finished flowering, but as the branches fell down I realised it was still
flowering at the top. So I stopped, and will leave that one until October now.

There is very little for late butterflies that I always leave the Buddleia until it has finished flowering. So I was a bit cross with myself that I had cut these down. So I cut the flower stems off and put them in an old saucepan of water, for any passing creature that took a fancy.

I was sitting on my swing writing when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something colourful on the cut Buddleia in the saucepan. It was a Painted Lady. Drat, I didn't have my phone on me. I had to go past it to get to where my phone was. But it was very intent on feeding.

I came back to the Painted Lady and it was still there feeding. I took some photos from a distance then got closer and closer. Suddenly I realised I was within a couple of inches from it, and my phone camera was following it as it moved round the Buddleia feeding. I must have got about 50 photos (no I didn't use burst mode, I focussed and took each one individually), when the Painted Lady looked at me and must have said "Ooops, I gotta fly away from this predator..."

So it flew away...

But it came back and spent the rest of the afternoon on and off feeding off the Buddleia. It did have a wary eye out for me in the meantime, but I left it be. I already had some brilliant close ups. It must have been absolutely intent on feasting initially that it was too engrossed to notice me and was totally oblivious to me and phone.

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