Flying insects

I'm sorry, my journal seems to be rather full of flying insects at the moment, but until very recently there have been so horribly few this year that I'm pursuing them while they're around.

Which means that after gardening all morning, this afternoon I went up to the butterfly reserve.

This, of course, is a painted lady, looking horribly damaged but still flying strongly.  It's the only one I've seen this year and was feeding primarily on marjoram and knapweed.  In fact, at one point it was settled on the marjoram and sticking its proboscis into the knapweed - something I've never seen a butterfly do before.

If I manage to blip a more elegant specimen I reserve the right to have a second one in this year's journal, but sadly I think I probably won't.

Hope your weekend's going well  xx