Light and shade

I was going to start with the moths today, as usual, but the weather has been so delectable that I cannot resist a few pictures of butterflies. These three were among a crowd of fluttering visitors, the other species being Small and Green-veined Whites. Luckily I have netted our brassicas, although I find it impossible to keep the little leaf-munchers out.

I was pleased to get the top picture of that lovely creature, the male Orange Tip, showing not juist its eponymous colouring which the female lacks, but the delicately-patterned hind underwing which is common to both sexes. Orange Tips are tremendously skittery and I've not been able to nab a decently focussed picture of one until today, through no lack of trying.

Lovely to stalk this Brimstone in a leisurely fashion too and I noted that the Holly Blue below zeroed in on two fragments of pottery and plastic in pretty much the same colour.  Mind you, it went for our Sweet Williams too, which are blooming early in common with a lot of other garden flowers this year. We have two terrific delphiniums in full fig, a whole month earlier than I would have expected.

So to the moths which are a commonplace group though none the worse for that. Two new-for-the-year species are the Coronet just below and then, after that, a couple of the very distinctive 'orange splodge' form of the Common Marbled Carpet, an extremely variable little moth. The second one has apparently had a hard life, although it will not have beebn one of more than a few weeks.

Finally, I've mentioned before the way that male Muslin moths always rest with their antennae out and raised. Here's further proof: a trio all in an apparent state of alert.