The day started wet with a snail squeaking across my window. By lunchtime, the sun was shining periodically but the wind was gusting. While lunch was cooking, I popped out into the back garden to look for butterflies.

I found a Meadow Brown, Comma and Peacock butterfly basking on the Sedum spectabile. Here they were having a rest from the wind. The Comma flew off to feed on Buddleia Lochinch and the Peacock on another Buddleia. The Meadow Brown butterfly had been feeding on Marjoram. This was the first of the summer brood of Peacock butterflies to be seen in my garden and consequently, it was in good condition. The Meadow Brown butterfly, by contrast, had lost it's hindwings.

An investigation around that part of the back garden, resulted in the discovery of a mating pair of Gatekeeper butterflies on Field Scabious.

Also spotted a Holly Blue butterfly a few minutes later in the back garden, which means that along with the Whites, there were 7 species of butterfly in my back garden this lunchtime. (but no Small Tortoiseshell!)



A quick tour of the front garden yielded another Comma butterfly on Buddleia Lochinch, which then went to feed on Hebe aurea and Ceanothus 'Gloire de Versailles' too.