a peacock in hiding

Firstly, thank you all so much for the very complimentary comments on my work in progress from yesterday. I really appreciated them all as this piece of work has been particularly tricky and I am just so delighted to have arrived at this stage with it.

The day started a bit chilly and drizzly but the dogs and I had a fine brisk walk with the wind blowing the grasses and small trees about with abandon. The ground underfoot is still sodden and will probably now remain that way until it turns to ice!

I managed some reasonable blips of both dogs as I was wanting to showcase the sleek, spruced Bruce. However once I returned home and got out into the garden for some more tidying, the sun came out and I noticed the buddleia had sprung into action. Honey bees were buzzing all over it and then I noticed a beautiful peacock butterfly high on one of the tallest flower spikes. I haven't managed a good blip of a butterfly yet but have been thrilled to see so many brilliant ones on here and have seen so many species that are new to me. Anyway I took lots of shots and as I cannot compete with the sharpness of other blips I have seen (the camera did try its best!) I decided to bring you this one which I thought was fun. The bee had been in situe for a while and I watched as the butterfly alighted on the far side of the flower spike and gradually worked its way round on the underside so as not to disturb the bee. As I haven't seen an image of the underside of this particular species I was really intrigued by the apparent texture of the wings and the way the sunlight caught just one of it's antennae. For a more colourful shot of the peacock please check out this one taken as the butterfly tentatively emerged round the side.