Marbled White butterfly

2019 will be marked as the year in which I (knowingly) saw my first Marbled Whites. I am not aware of having seen these striking butterflies before, but this last summer we saw a few at Stowe Landscape Gardens and then the one above on the edge of the golf course that leads to St Enodoc church in Cornwall. 

In my previous post, I added a photo of a moth with vibrant orange underwings; and here, by contrast, is a stylish specimen that lacks the array of pigments we often associate with butterflies. It just goes to show that moths can be bright and colourful and butterflies can be... well, frankly, black and white!   

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I feel sure the tapestry hassock above from the church at St Enodoc displays a Purple Emperor, classed by many as 'His (or Her) Imperial Majesty' among our British butterflies. I have only ever seen a female... to date.

Sir John Betjeman's Cornish Slate grave at St Enodoc

An Orange-tip, a Dragon and Bluebells at Sutton Hoo

This is just a quick post: I couldn't resist adding the Orange-tip photograph. Doesn't the butterfly look stunning on the Bluebell?

Orange and blue are complementary colours, on opposite sides of the colour wheel, so where does camouflage come in? Obviously it doesn't, but I wonder why...

I am sure the dragon had more to do with the Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxons than with St George, but there it was waiting for us to find in the wood on 23 April!