Butterfly day

Yes, another butterfly day and what a lovely one it's been.  Not only did I come home with a shot of this beautiful creature, but when I did I looked out of the office window and saw three small whites, a red admiral and a comma in the garden.  Now my garden is very small and although I've seen a white or two in it before now, I've never been visited by either a red admiral or a comma and certainly not so many butterflies at once.  So I'm reckoning the attempt to make the place more pollinator friendly is working and that makes me happy!

But this butterfly: it's a silver-washed fritillery, not unlike the pearl-bordered fritillery I blipped back in May, but for one unmissable difference - it is much bigger!  Where the male pearl-bordereds have a wingspan of 38-46mms, this one has a wingspan of 69-76.  The females are even larger!  Makes them hard to miss ;))

I understand from Butterfly Conservation that it's bad form to say where you find butterflies that are particularly rare or beautiful, so I'm not going to (on the grounds that it's beautiful, though probably not hugely rare).  Believe it or not, people target them for capture and breeding in the usual selfish way we humans have.

Hoping your day's been a good one and you have a great evening  xx

PS: Results of FW23_13 will be in my journal tomorrow ;)