Speckled Wood Butterfly

This rather lovely butterfly settled on a patio chair while I was having lunch. It was kind enough to stay there while I rushed indoors to get my camera; it didn't wait long after that however, so I didn't have time to hone the focus as well as I'd have liked. But I thought this photo was probably good enough to blip anyway! The white chair provided good surrounding contrast (after I had Photoshopped away some mucky marks on the chair!).

I am no butterfly expert but Professor Google tells me that it's a Speckled Wood Butterfly. This link tells us more about them. Seemingly they are generally found south of a line joining Westmorland and South-East Yorkshire, with a few scattered colonies further north; this one in Newcastle must therefore belong to one of these "scattered colonies". Normally they live in woods - we do have some trees around the garden.

In northern areas they tend to have white spots (as this one has), whereas further south the spots are orange. Judging by the pictures on the web I think this one is probably a female (maybe that's why it was camera-shy lol!).

Being a retired eye surgeon I rather like the "eye-spots" along the back edges of the wings :)

Press L to view large.