The perfect model

It was sunny and very warm when I left the house today. Already a little too warm for my liking even. I knew I'd timed my arrival at the artificial island very badly again when I saw the swan lowering herself onto the eggs the moment I stopped there this afternoon on my way to the sanctuary.

After my walk with Harley, a sweet Tibetan Terrier, I took a few photos of the Magnolia that is flowering in front of the sanctuary with the idea in mind that I could blip one of those shots if I didn't find anything else. When I walked past the Mahonia shrub that I'd blipped in January though I spotted this Peacock butterfly on it. Fortunately I hadn't put the camera back in my bag yet and the butterfly was the perfect model and didn't fly off until after I'd taken a few photos.

I noticed another butterfly, a small blue one this time, when I left the park but it kept fluttering around so much that I couldn't even see properly which one it was.

On my way home I stopped at the artificial island again and after waiting 25 minutes the swan finally showed me that none of her 8 eggs had hatched yet.

Thank you so much for the kind comments and stars on my spring-time pond blip from yesterday. :)