butterflies

The buddleias by the veranda have nearly gone over.  They have been a magnet for Peacock butterflies, and even now the last few flowers are studded with their red and black wings. The Peacock is a beautiful insect, and one of the few butterflies I can recognise.  Compared to bumble bees, though, their navigational strategies are rubbish, and compared to honey bees they are very difficult to help once they've got lost.

The problem is that they have been coming in to the sitting room.  We've had the veranda door open in the hot weather, and they've been fluttering up off the buddleia and into the house.  Once inside, they gravitate to the big window, which faces almost due south and is the brightest side of the room, and bang against the glass.  They will not stay still while you put a glass over them and slide a piece of stiff paper under their feet, like the honey bees do, so you can't put them out.  Nor will they swoop randomly around the room like the bumbles do until they see the open door, and make their own way out.  Bumble bees are pretty good at finding their way out of houses, as insects go.

The way to get the Peacocks out is to shut the curtains, so that the open door becomes the brightest point.  Then, eventually, they will fly out.  Shutting a pair of curtains so that the butterfly ends up on the inside of them, and not sandwiched between the fabric and the glass, still battering away against the window, is quite difficult.  You have to press the material against the window while pulling the curtain across, and it is easier with two people, as you need at least three hands. We have ended up leaving the curtains shut for the afternoon, just to try and make sure that any visiting Peacocks go straight out again.

When they stop fluttering and rest with their wings pressed together, you realise that the backs of the wings are extremely dark, velvet black.  I could not have told you that until a couple of days ago, but it is now graved on my visual memory after looking at so many specimens.

The herb bed is a mass of insects too, including butterflies.  No Peacocks, but a lot of small orange and brown ones whose names I don't know.  They might be Skippers, either Small or Essex.  I remember soft orange wings with a brown margin, no spots, and definitely no white patches, but I failed to even look at their undersides.  In truth, I don't greatly mind what they were.  They were pretty, I don't suppose they were rare, and I don't plan to start gardening differently on their account.  There is plenty of rough grass, lots of nettles and lots of flowers supplying nectar, which suits the butterflies and me.  I have got two different sorts of oregano in the herb bed, one with pink and the other with white flowers.  The butterflies and the bees love both of them.