A Peacock Butterfly, Aglais io, feeding on nectar from Buddleja flowers in my garden.
Peacock Butterflies are one of the most common garden butterfly species in my part of Scotland. Like the other species, they don’t tend to appear in my garden until late August and stay until mid-September, which was traditionally the time when the Buddlejas flower. However, over the past few years, the Buddlejas have been flowering earlier and earlier, this year my two ‘Buzz’ Buddlejas started to flower in mid-July, so then it’s a case of constantly deadheading them in the hope of keeping them flowering long enough to meet the butterflies’ needs.
They don’t seem to want to come earlier in the summer, even though the Buddlejas are pumping out their super-sweet fragrance as soon as they flower – and I have other ‘Butterfly-friendly’ flowers which peak in July and August.
This photo is copyright © Liz Leyden, all rights strictly as agreed in writing with the author or her agent.
My photo of a Peacock Butterfly is available to license as a stock photo from iStock.
