Garden wildlife – Part 2 Peacock butterfly

The temperature hit 13 degrees celsius afternoon and a few butterflies were out and about.

Firstly, a Brimstone flew over the garden. Around 3pm a Comma butterfly fluttered around but didn’t settle, then in floated this Peacock butterfly, which settled and sunned itself on a patch of bare earth.

• The Peacock butterfly is commonly found all over the UK.
• It has a lifespan of around 11 months
• The wingspan of the adult butterfly is around 50 – 55 mm
• Butterflies can detect the colours red, green and yellow.
• The Peacock butterfly makes a hissing sound by rubbing its wings together that can be heard by humans. This together with flashing its wings is to scare away predators
• The adults spend most of the morning nectaring. Males set up territories around midday, often on the sunny side of a wood, where they wait for a passing female. (https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/)

Butterflies’ wings are made up of scales, laid over each other like roofing tiles. A Peacock butterfly wings have around 750,000 scales.

This is a photo I took of a Peacock butterfly caterpillar in June 2018