The last Painted Lady?

Well surely it has to be..

On this very beautiful day I decided to stop neglecting the garden - there is so much to do, including planting the bulbs I only bought yesterday.  So, rather late, they have now gone into the soil - mixed daffs and orange tulips.  And I hadn't even thought about what I might blip, but who should turn up in the garden, as a flash in the corner of my eye, than this complete beauty.  I'd already seen red admirals floating around, but this was unmistakably too orange.  Didn't even have my camera with me so I had to race upstairs for it, but the butterfly didn't care.  It must have fed on my verbena (not very) rigida for about half an hour.  I think I took about 500 shots!

Looking at its (almost) pristine condition I wondered if it was a new one just about to emigrate, but it's too orange to be new and my field guide says that although they immigrate from South Africa at the beginning of the season, they don't emigrate at the end of it, they just die.  How sad.  It means this one can't be far off the end, we actually had a frost last night.

My only other shots today were of the garden robin, who came down to see what I was doing.  I have too many shots of him already, but I can never resist that bright little eye.

Happy Sunday evening.  Hope your weekend's been a good one and that the week starts well for you  xx