Damp

It rained through the morning, and R and I used the time to tidy and declutter the loft. No, honestly. I know - I was pretty amazed myself.

Afterwards we went to the garden centre, primarily to eat cake and drink coffee obviously, but also to do some essential shopping on behalf of the garden wildlife, which is currently eating more than we do. Just as we arrived back home the sun emerged, and I spent a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours chugging up and down the garden with the cameras, snapping away at a range of interesting invertebrates.

I was pursuing a hoverfly across a stand of cow parsley in the wild garden when I suddenly realised that I was standing almost on top of this Green-veined White, which had selected one of the flower heads as its wet-weather perch for the morning, and still hadn't completely dried out. I slowly raised the camera, snapped five frames, glanced at the back screen to check the exposure, looked up again... and the butterfly was nowhere to be seen.

According to UK Butterflies the Green-veined White is "a common butterfly of damp grassland and woodland rides". Well, there you go. Though it would probably take exception to being called common.

This would repay being viewed full-screen, if you have the time.