Seen Any Butterflies Yet?

I don't expect to see any for a while just yet, but as with with my birding motto....'what next and where'....I'm going to be looking for my first butterfly of 2018.

A Red Admiral was spotted three weeks ago in two counties on New Years Day, and has been reported widely across the south of England since, the temperature in Plymouth yesterday was 12C/53F. A Peacock was also seen on 1 January, and since then, there have been reports of Brimstone and Comma, and nearer to home, a Small Tortoiseshell was seen at Banks near Southport on 7 January.

On the subject of butterflies....

Small Tortoiseshell. Pete Woodruff.

I took this shot of the ST in our garden in August last summer, but until I got the image up on my computer screen, I hadn't realised there was a moth to the right of the butterfly.

Even with a serious crop like this, I was only able to ID the moth as the difficult to seperate P.purpuralis or P.aurata, and certainly so with an image of poor quality like this, but according to the experts, the latter.

Back to birds today, but need the time to do the write-up.

Thanks to John Whittle for the excellent Dunlin in flight header.