The last great feast

A very beautiful morning on which I must have seen 40 red admirals, all of them large, pristine and hungry!

This one, together with huge numbers of it's kin, bumped into me on the butterfly reserve while busy guzzling the last great butterfly feast of the year - flowering ivy.  The wasps were also at it in numbers.  I say 'last feast', but while waiting for a bus in the Broadway to take me up Morn Hill I wandered into Abbey Gardens where there were also red admirals - about twelve of them feasting on the ground on rotting crab apples, just outside the Mayor's House.  They were so well camouflaged I didn't see any of them until I'd blundered into them and put up half a dozen.  I've added a shot in Extras so you can see what I mean ;))

So this has taken up most of my Saturday, apart from walking Hazel, but the sun has truly made the exhaustion worthwhile.

Hope your Saturday's a good one  xx