Last of the Big Butterfly Counts

Small Tortoiseshell butterflies have been largely absent from our garden this year but as I walked across our yard in pursuit of small whites I spotted three tortoiseshells on the Valerian. It’s flowering again in this rather neglected patch, that has traditionally been the garden of a neighbour.  (I cut off all the fluffy seed heads about a month ago.)  So three Small Whites, three Small Tortoiseshells and one Holly Blue to record for what will probably be my final Big Butterfly Count as it ends tomorrow.

Merv and I have been constructed a new flower bed this morning to help distract me from another neighbours bright yellow fence that has gone up this year without much thought for those of us who have to look at it (you know that colour when timber is newly tantalised). They don’t actually look out at it as their house is around the corner!

p.s. I learnt a couple of new Lightroom tricks yesterday evening from Ken Fisher that I think will be very useful.  He showed us what he felt were the most useful new features in Lightroom CC and I have to agree.   One of them made a spectacular difference to one of my Iceland photos that I was about to consign to the bin.