Sunning

It was fascinating and extraordinary behaviour to watch but also incredibly helpful once I clocked what was going on.

This Red Admiral flitted around, stopped to sun itself for five minutes and then disappeared, coming back five minutes later to sunbathe again. On the apple tree, the breeze house roof, the pear tree all within a few yards of each other and then dropping down into the hawthorn hedge. Crawling underneath I discovered it was returning back to exactly the same spot where there was a split in the trunk, a hole about 4cms long. It was just loving feeding on the sap from the bark. So, every time I lost it I knew without a doubt where it would end up and it did - very handy!

They, I've just read, have elliptical territories 4-13m long and 8-24m wide which the male defends against intruders by out-flying and manoeuvring them. They also like to eat bird droppings and fermenting fruit - no wonder it liked the apple trees.