As well as the peacock butterfly, we saw a gatekeeper, one blue one and a lot of white ones. Hey, I got 50% of them identified.
Their lavender also attracted all the bees in the city. It was very peaceful watching them.
This is a less peaceful critter.
Turns out it's a sort of horsefly - the heaviest fly in Europe. That, I am sure, could deliver one hell of a sting. I didn't see it - Leanne sent me the photo.
I did see a bug in the bath. I think that I took it on board while putting some German chamomile I had foraged into a pot. But goodness knows where it was hiding to end up in the bath.
It has been a very breezy day and when I visited the copse I could feel the vibrations of the wind through the trunk of my tree.... it was like a low electrical hum. A distinctly strange feeling. And sounded like waves crashing on the beach when I leaned into the trunk to listen.
As for the fledgling news - did I tell you that I saw Divo and Diva with three babies? Maybe I did but the photo showed only two. I think I caught all three here. Though the following day, there were only two.
The jays seemed to have increased in numbers when I saw them again. I had scared them to the back of the garden and they hopped onto an adjacent roof and climbed up it like screaming mountaineers!
Beautiful butterfly. Beware of horse flies. They have big nasty mouthparts and BITE. The sounds of wind and trees are so intimately connected. Divo and Diva - 3 kids, that's an achievement! I saw a blue jay yesterday with head feathers gone (moulting - looked rather sad).