OHC - Butterflies

Day after day I watch the butterflies gently flutter across my garden, stopping briefly on the variety of summer flowers that fill my garden beds. They make me happy and bring a certain peacefulness to my soul. They are just so beautiful and so gentle. Last year we hardly saw any butterflies due the rather strange wet weather that hung over Britain for the entire summer. Well - this year they seem to be making up for lost time! There is an abundance of these delicate little creatures.

There is just no way that we could not spend a little time learning about and appreciating these insects. So one afternoon this week, I handed each of my girls a camera and announced that we were going on a butterfly hunt. We were going to 'capture' our finds on film and see how many species we could find.

Interestingly, this approach to our nature walk, that is capturing nature on {digital} film, inspired both girls so much that it was hard to eventually drag them back home! They were so absorbed in their task and SO eager! Delightful!!! 

As we walked along the tree-line, we  found loads of 'Small Whites' fluttering about. The sure are hard to capture on camera though! Here are the butterflies we found on our walk...

Small White

Speckled Wood

Comma

Peacock

 Small Heath

Small Tortoiseshell (found at home on the wall)

Another butterfly we found but just could not seem to capture was the 'Holly Blue'. Interestingly enough, when we were reading up on our butterflies later on at home, the field guide made specific reference to this being a particularly difficult butterfly to photograph! Miss J-L readily agreed! :o)

During our walk, one of the girls got stung by nettles. 'I hate nettles!' She cried. 'Why did God have to invent nettles?!'

As we were reading about the various butterflies, we noticed that nearly all of the species favourite food was... NETTLES!

The girls were tired and it was rather late after our butterfly hunt, so we decided to work in our journals the next day. Miss J-L - who is adverse to drawing and painting - persevered and did this lovely painting of a Speckled Wood butterfly. We printed out the rest and she stuck them into her journal.

Miss V-L and I want to paint all the butterflies we found in our journals, but it going to be a longer process as they are quite difficult to get right! Here is Miss V-L's entry of the Peacock butterfly...

and mine of the Comma and the Speckled Wood...

I'm not thrilled with my Comma butterfly - I need to make the colours a bit brighter - but that will be at another sitting ;o)