Ringlet butterfly and other garden visitors

The sunny weather has been ideal for butterfly watching and as usual we have had several species visit our garden this year.

The most recent was a comma butterfly last Saturday.


One of the most recent and uncommon visitor to our garden is the ringlet butterfly.

This one is feeding on the blackberry flowers next to our pond.


The most common visitor is the speckled wood and then red admiral and then gatekeeper. A few small tortoiseshell and this year only a few painted lady so far (back in May) but maybe more to come from the second generation.


Small white butterflies are also fairly common visitors. Out of the blue butterflies (that settle) the holly blue is most common in our garden.

A great day for butterflies

Having seen few butterflies this year so far, it turned out to be a great day for butterflies.

I think this is a male ringlet butterfly. The markings are a bit more striking than I have seen on other specimens but maybe this one has emerged recently as they usually fly July to August. This one in on the grass verge outside our garden.

This is a large skipper on our hydrangea bush

Another meadow brown, I think this is also a male

A small white on the lavender

A comma butterfly also on the lavender

You can clearly see the white mark on the underside of its wing which gives this butterfly its name 'comma'

I decided to check on the other herring gull family. They have 3 chicks.

These two are getting some shade from the chimney

The third chick is smaller and weaker.

I looked back at the house and watched the swifts skim head height over our garden