Thursday 8 March 2018

Butterflies are emerging less that five days after the snows have melted

Sitting down in the conservatory yesterday, having just finished our lunch, we had a few moments of the sweetest pleasure: we watched butterflies on the wing.  A couple of large yellow butterflies were slowly flying in the garden around the edge of the densely leaved evergreen Holm oak which grows on the other side of our garden wall.  They are so distinctive with their shape and colour, and early flights.

I have made the link to Butterfly Conservation .The male  brimstones  had just emerged from hybernation.  They seemed sometimes almost suspended in the air and then they suddenly darted off.  For perhaps two minutes we were captivated.  They are a real harbinger of Spring, and I read that the word butterfly may well owe its origin to the buttery colour of the Brimstone, and then Brimstone is also the name for sulphur which is yellow.  Yellow butterflies certainly stand out against the green and silver leaf canopy.

This siting is about five weeks earlier than the last time in  mid April 2013 when I last wrote about Pulmanarias in the my old garden, when I made a note about first seeing Brimstone butterflies.

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