Thanks once again for the comments, chaps. I am very envious of that as a workplace, Neil - I'd be there every day from late April onwards, I think!
![Mr. Green :mrgreen:](./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif)
Just get saving those brownie points...
Tuesday 28th October: Well, this really is the season that just keeps on giving. It was another glorious day today, brilliant sun and Temperatures nudging 20 degrees. Elliot and I stayed close to home today, with a gentle circuit around the nearer parts of my local patch at around eleven o'clock or so. On the first patch of sunlit ivy, we found four Red Admirals and a Comma, alternately nectaring and swooping off on aerobatic sorties - A fine start. The nettles along this route are truly luxuriant at the moment, looking as they normally do in early May, rather than late October, which is a measure of the very mild autumn thus far. Emerging into full sun from a bit of woodland, we found a sheltered patch of ivy-covered wall. This particular patch had been cut back earlier in the year, but had regrown, though flowering had been delayed by the trim. This was proving much to the benefit of another six Red Admirals (a minimum count - we had six in sight at once briefly).
![RA1 281014.JPG (375.26 KiB) Viewed 928 times RA1 281014.JPG](./files/thumb_9839_bdf8862be830f5e9b5cd4289cd6ba1d2)
![RA2 281014.JPG (377.75 KiB) Viewed 928 times RA2 281014.JPG](./files/thumb_9839_b29359f7c3ccc033d04ff32df144b24b)
![RA3 281014.JPG (377.52 KiB) Viewed 928 times RA3 281014.JPG](./files/thumb_9839_5a4624e2c0874269bdd2171ad54e5981)
And that was not all. Elliot shouted "blue butterfly!" and he was right: a Holly Blue was also flying back and forth across the ivy. It settled a couple of times, but not for long.
The strong sun kept it from opening up more than a smidgen, but it was enough to see that it was a beautiful new female.
After she had flown up over the wall out of sight, my eye was caught by something else dancing along very close to the foliage. This was a male Brimstone, clearly woken from its slumbers by the unusually warm sunshine and looking to settle down again in another cosy nook.
I tracked him to one possible spot, but he emerged again and settled in the sun for a while before renewing his quest.
We carried on to near the end of the circuit, where a final stand of sunlit ivy remained to be investigated. Just before the target bushes, another Holly Blue flew past about ten feet up along the hedge-line and disappeared. The ivy itself had another couple of Red Admirals and a Comma.
On the point of calling it a day, I saw another flash of blue. A Holly Blue had settled just ahead on the nettles - male, and one that had been out a day or two. Whether this was no. 3 or just no.2 again, I can't really guess.
After lunch, I nipped out very briefly again, but saw just one Red Admiral and one Comma - both in splendid autumnal poses, basking in the late afternoon light.
If anyone had told me at the start of the season that I'd have been writing all this as a diary account for this date, I'd have been mighty sceptical!
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
Amazingly, the weather forecast for Friday promises more of the same.
Dave