the holly and the ivy

...wow, what a day for butterflies!

Whenever we have guests, we can usually guarantee being asked if we can show them a Sand Lizard so, this morning, we went over to Studland and were able to delight everybody with a good show of males, females and babies :)

Fortunately, my sister loves wildlife and was more than happy to indulge my passion for butterflies. Consequently, this afternoon, we all headed back over to Ballard Down.

Even without butterflies this is a special place for our family as our Dad's ashes were reunited with this, his favourite place, in 2004. But, today, there were butterflies. Hundreds of them. There I was, yesterday, chasing that solitary Adonis when, today, we were tripping over them! Along with the Adonis Blues, were dozens of Brown Argus, Peacocks, Small Copper, Wall, Grayling, Small Tortoiseshell, Speckled Wood, Marbled White, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Large Skipper, Common Blue, Red Admiral, and Holly Blue.

Those who have been following my butterfly escapades will remember that I have been trying to persuade a Holly Blue Celastrina argiolus to pose for me for days, and today one did. This was not the best image of the day but I have wanted to blip a Holly for ages so I am delighted. Incidentally, it is only the spring generation of larvae that feed on Holly; the autumn generation feed on Ivy.

Forgive me, I will catch up with comments later this evening...