According to Laurie Graves, commenting on my last post, she likes pictures of Peacock butterflies as they don’t see them in Maine. I don’t feel too sorry for her though, she does have Hummingbirds in summer.
Anyway, as I have plenty of photographs of Peacocks I thought it might be in order to put a few up.
Peacock Butterfly on Buddleia
The featured image is a Peacock on crocuses, taken in February a few years ago. It’s the earliest butterfly I’ve ever photographed, though they can, according to reports, be seen on every day of the year.
Peacock at Mencap gardens
I’ve always liked Peacocks. My first memory of butterflies dates from around 1960-61 but I only recall them as either white or reddish brown. We were living outside York at that time, and went on to Blackburn, Clitheroe and Lincolnshire before noticing them again in 1967. At that point we moved to a house near Peterborough. It had a sheltered paved area with a buddleia and one day in our first summer there I noticed that the bush was hosting a Peacock convention. It’s tempting to say it was covered with them, but this would be an exaggeration. However, there were more butterflies in one spot than I remember seeing before or since.
Peacocks and Small Tortoiseshell at the Ecocentre
And not just butterflies, but big, bright, velvety butterflies.
From that day on, I was confirmed as a butterfly enthusiast.