Butterfly Beauties

This month has been great for seeing butterflies, including a first for me, this comma butterfly, so named because of the shape of its wing edges.

This was at Amisfield walled garden in Haddington, where dozens of butterflies were feasting on the nectar of the aptly named “gooseneck loosestrife”. I have never seen so many butterflies all at once.

I counted about twenty red admirals on this one clump of white blooms. Red admirals were originally named red “admirables” .

There were lots of striking peacock butterflies around too.

White butterflies have been very common this month. This is a cabbage white.

Here are some other butterflies which I had to look up in my wee “Collins Gem Butterflies and Moths” book. This Speckled Wood was on a hogweed leaf around by the river.

This one was spotted on the earth next to a large field of sunflowers. I believe it is a wall brown. It looks a bit worse for wear.

Finally this is a small blue which was flitting about the rosebay willowherb flowers. It was quite a challenge trying to photograph it.

Today I went down to our local community garden where the bees were out in force but there were no butterflies. Their days are now numbered as the weather gets chillier and autumn approaches.