Peacock butterfly

[nanila]

Click to embiggen
Vibrant peacock butterfly on one of our poor snail-munched white hyacinths.

I was surprised to see this, and a small tortoiseshell, flitting around our garden so early in April.

Comments

[ysilme]

Oohh, gorgeous shots!

[nanila]

Thank you! It was a wonderfully sunny and warm day, so its colours really popped.

[spiralsheep]

Peacock and small tortoiseshell are both species with some hibernating imagos so they reappear as soon as the weather warms up because they're merely reappearing from shelter not growing from eggs. I saw my first brimstone ridiculously early this year, especially bearing in mind the weather.

Lovely caps. Thank you for sharing.

[nanila]

It must be the warmth of the past few days drawing them out. (Aside: Imago is a great word.)

I saw a yellowish-white butterfly in the garden briefly as well, but didn't get close enough for identification. Do cabbage whites hibernate? Or is it just brimstones?

[spiralsheep]

Neither of the most common cabbage butterflies, large white or small white, overwinter as imagos in England afaik but you could be seeing early examples of either now, although the large whites are usually marginally ahead. There are also a couple of rarer or more distinctive species, such as green-veined whites, that aren't always easy to id without a close look. Brimstones tend to exhibit very distinctive erratic flight patterns, to evade predators during the months when there are few similar prey insects on the wing, whereas the white family tend towards more average butterfly flight patterns.

[nanila]

Ah, thank you. I didn't know if we were far south enough for the cabbages to overwinter here.

I didn't know brimstones could be distinguished by their flight patterns, so thank you for that too - I shall watch carefully the next time I see them in my garden!

[glitteryv]

These are some awesome pics! \Nature/!

[nanila]

Thank you. Nature ftw!

[nightdog_barks]

Wow, that is beautiful!

[nanila]

They have stunning markings! It's in great condition after its winter sleep.

[egret]

So pretty! Thanks for posting it!

[nanila]

Thanks for saying so! I'm glad you liked it.

[shirebound]

Beautiful shots! I have trouble getting butterfly shots so blur-free on my camera.

[nanila]

Thank you! If you have a camera with a continuous-shooting/Best Shot mode, that might help? Each of these is from a quick burst of 3-5 shots with my dSLR in continuous mode (where it keeps taking shots as long as I have the shutter button pressed). I discard the blurry/inadequate ones and keep the sharp one!

[shirebound]

That's great advice, thank you.

[turlough]

Peacocks are so beautiful! You've managed to get some really nice shots of it.

I saw a Brimstone here yesterday but definitely no Peacocks yet.

[nanila]

Thank you! I got lucky - when I started taking shots, it was about a metre from me, and it just kept getting closer as it went from hyacinth to hyacinth.

[lavendertook]

Beautiful shots of a beautiful flutterbye!!!

[nanila]

They are spectacular. It's been visiting daily, which is a joy!

[lark_ascends]

Stunning.

[nanila]

\o/ :) Thank you.