As I mentioned before, my wife is a gardener by profession. She has an annual pass for Hillier Gardens, and I usually come along with her once or twice a year. Now there's an extra incentive: check out butterflies!
We covered the whole garden today, but decided to focus our attention on the Centenary Border.
The weather was mostly warm and sunny, but with a few sharp showers. Butterflies were pretty active; it's amazing to see how quickly they are back nectaring once it stops raining!
In total, we saw ten species. Plenty of small whites and red admirals, a few holly blues, commas and painted ladies.
A single small copper was new for my wife (I'd seen it many years ago in the Netherlands, but never in Britain), and the few brown argus butterflies we saw were new to both of us.
We did see a very tattered silver-washed fritillary along the Centenary Border, but just as we left the Gardens, a much fresher silver-washed fritillary let itself be photographed.
And here's the table of the species we saw, with an indication of their frequency (one = 1; few = 2-4; several = 5-9; many = 10+).
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