Bees And Butterflies

The wind has dropped, the sun is out and insects are everywhere.  Bees on the lavender, hoverflies on the fennel - they love it and I keep at least one large clump growing, which does result in it seeding itself all around the garden - especially if I don't dead-head it soon enough.

There are plenty of butterflies around - blue and brown ones.  They spend more time fluttering than settling, so are difficult to identify and even then, I've got the book in hand trying to work them out.  The pictures have them nicely settled with open wings and more often they've got their wings closed, not so helpful.  However, I did identify holly blue, meadow brown and a gatekeeper (two white spots in the black eyespot).

I'm doing a course this weekend on butterflies so I hope to have improved my fluttering butterfly identification skills.  Especially the little blue and brown ones you see out on the downland.