Mating Scarlet Tiger Moths on the wisteria leaves

I had thought of driving  to Sapperton to look for the Large Blue butterfly which has recently started flying in a special local habitat at the head of the  Golden Valley. But my back has been a bit sore recently and today was particularly bad.

This morning I went on a food shopping trip, which also involved visits to two garden centres in search of favourite plants. I did find two morning glory plants, which had been neglected by the garden centre and they may be past their best. I will try to let them roam madly in our garden bringing a bit of special joy to the summer mornings. In the second garden centre where I'd discovered a wonderful plant last year, I was told they'd sold the last one two weeks ago. I should have gone there when I first thought of buying another one! That will teach me to follow my intuition when the moment arises. I did buy a few climbing French Bean plants and a rather unusual thyme plant.

Late this afternoon when I realised that I wouldn't go to Sapperton, I took my camera into the garden looking for a subject. I got rather carried away and I nearly blipped the first of the year's flowers from the Sollya heterophylla plant, another favourite of mine.

I spotted a moth flying and tried to follow it and did manage to catch a picture of it in flight. When I found it had landed beside the cabin  on the wisteria plant I tried to get closer. Then I was delighted to see it had landed next to another moth and within a few seconds they started to mate. 

They are Scarlet Tiger Moths and are very pretty and their wings are very colourful when seen in flight. I would have blipped a shot of that flight if I hadn't seen the two of them together which must be a rather rare sight to catch.

This Wildlife Insight web site entry has a lot of information about Scarlet Tiger Moth with good pictures. In fact they love comfrey and this wisteria plant is growing next to a clump of  tall flowering comfrey plants.