The procession of heatwaves we have experienced this summer has been good for one particular species of insect I am very pleased to say, namely the butterfly. They are in need of a big boost such as we have seen this year and many more to follow hopefully.

On a recent walkabout Sir Harold Hillier Gardens we discovered that they had seen many hundreds of butterflies of more types than they had for a very long time.

I was able to grab a couple of them with my camera, a Red Admiral and a Meadow Brown which was a bit of a challenge as these little creature really are 'flutterbyes', fast and flighty and, annoyingly of course, fold their wings vertically when completely at rest.

However they are beautiful and one of natures wonders plus it was great for a change to see so many of them. Joy!