Late to the party

Today, feeling pretty well back to normal and determined not to miss what maybe our last full blue-sky day, I walked up to the butterfly reserve to see what wildflowers are out and what butterflies.

Well the wildflowers haven't yet started their great flood of riches in terms of colour and species.  Another two or three weeks for that, I reckon The zillions of cowslips are seeding now and all else I saw there was a rather thin selection of white deadnettle, dandelions, little frills of cow parsley and speedwell.

And of the butterflies?  Well it was brimstone day, that's for sure.  Most of the other varieties aren't on show yet.  The attraction for all these male brimstones was (needless to say) a lone female.  I've put another shot - almost a mandala - in extras, but this one showed the little guy on the left zooming in, a bit late to the party.  He just got to me!  Have never captured an inflight butterfly with wings fully depressed and just love the way they hold their tiny bodies.

Back to the wildflowers, this is just to remind any of you who want to do the WildFlowerWeek challenge that WFW20_04 ended yesterday at midnight and we're now onto WFW20_05.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend  xx