Chasing Butterflies

I was happy to see butterflies in my Butterfly Park again this past weekend. (The park has another boring name really, but I've been calling it Butterfly Park since I first started blogging.) I love chasing butterflies around the flowerbeds there with my camera - I find it strangely meditative. (At least when I'm the only human there - which on this occasion I was!)

Predominant this year are the Painted Ladies, or thistle butterflies. We are having quite an invasion of those in Sweden this year (and so does Britain, I've gathered from friends over there). They come here from the Mediterranean area and North Africa in the spring, but I don't think we've ever seen as many of them before as this year (well not in modern times anyway). Enough to be News in all the media, especially back in May when they first arrived. (I'm guessing that many of those we see now are the offspring of the migrants.)

 And they seem to really love the Echinacea flowers in the park...

 

However, I also spotted two colourful ones of different kind... One of them (Peacock) I noticed while I was there in the park; the other one (Small Tortoiseshell) not until I got the photos up on my screen at home!

Peacock butterfly

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly

There were also several white ones.

And some busy bumblebees as well.