The garden was absolutely alive and buzzing with insect life today - bees, flies, ants and this one butterfly. This showy peacock butterfly is the first butterfly I have seen in the garden this year. A dark shape gliding seemingly aimlessly overhead before settling on one of the few remaining flowers on the winter honeysuckle (a blog about this another day!) to feed.
Peacock butterflies are, I think, one of our most easily recognisable species of butterfly. The eye spots on its wings make it difficult to confuse with other species and are thought to have evolved to distract or startle predators. This individual will be one that has hibernated in its adult form through the winter and has been brought out on the wing by the warmer weather. If you like seeing this butterfly, consider allowing stinging nettles to grow somewhere in your garden, they are the food plant for peacock caterpillars.
References:
https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies/peacock accessed 25/03/2020
Chinery, M (2005) Collins Complete Guide to British Insects, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
Tolman, T & Lewington, R (2008) Collins Butterfly Guide, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
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