Hello

She winged her way over the garden at high speed, lovely to watch after my drought of butterflies in the winter and I thought I'd lost her. However while on my quick bee safari she reappeared and settled in the sunshine on the house wall for a brief time. No way was she getting away again as I sidled up close and personal to get a few shots.

This fairly large peacock butterfly, so named because of the eye pattern on it's wing is very territorial and she must have come out of hibernation ready to lay eggs this spring - usually about 400/500 in total usually on nettles. She will be feeding on the nectar of spring flowering plants like the primrose with her long proboscis which you can just make out here although it's curled up.

What enthrals me about butterflies is their huge compound eyes seen here which are excellent in detecting motion. To the right of the eye are the labial palpi forward facing protuberances which contain the olfactory senses for smell as well as provide protection for the eyes themselves.

Not the best of days as the work I was doing on the computer this morning was mostly lost with it somehow switching itself off when I started printing. No idea!!!! Restarting meant I lost the page of calculations which I thought had been saved like all the others but hadn't! Thank goodness for the butterfly as it quickly pulled me out of a slightly black mood! Loving having them around again! You can't be grumpy looking at her!

This is SOOC cropped but that's all.