www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I am currently selling off the contents of my Parents home, as my mother has had to go into care at Christmas and my Father died several years ago.
I had a customer arrive today to collect some garage items and we got talking Butterflies as he was a Beekeeper, but not a Butterfly man.
He mentioned that whilst at a pub in Stratford on Avon in April 2022 whilst drinking outside with his wife at a pub, a fantastic large butterfly landed on their table and kept flitting around his wine glass. As he described it I imagined a Monarch maybe.But he said it had irridessant blue appearance with big brown eye spots.That had me stummped, and so he said he would send me some photos he took and a short video as it was quite a memorable creature.
I have just received the photos and video and am amazed.To me it seems like some exotic South American species and surely it can only be a Wedding or other kind of local release.But I thought it very worthy of sharing with you all for comment. I can assure you he was perfectly genuine and a very honest guy. I just wish beyond my wildest dreams I could have seen such an exotic looking species at my wine table in the UK just out of the blue on a sunny April afternoon !
Comments welcome so I can feed back to Garry, the Gentleman who witnessed it.

Looks like a Morpho sp. Almost certainly an escape from Stratford Butterfly Farm.
https://www.butterflyfarm.co.uk/attraction/
As a non native, if its being released at a wedding they'd probably be breaking the law!

Every year a few 'exotics' escape from butterfly houses in the UK.

Nice to see this one is a connoisseur of red wine.

My son lives in Stratford-upon-Avon and every year he gets on or two exotics in his garden that have escaped from the nearby Stratford Butterfly Farm.

Cheers,

Neil.