Painted Lady

This is the 1783rd pic of a painted lady butterfly to be posted on blipfoto, and the 4,294,724th to be posted online overall. That’s my reasonable guess :-)

But it is the first to visit our garden. So as this is a “painted lady year”, the first since 2009.when this migratory species last exploded in numbers from North Africa, it has to be today’s blip. The sedum also attracted lots of bees and flies, the nectar must be good,

It has been a chores day. But we had a brief excursion out. Plenty of Himalayan Balsam in flower. Not my favourite, and the smell can be cloying. But the bees love it. As can be seen in the extra.