European Gardening: Male Gatekeeper, 1 by wallaby1

wallaby1 wrote:
The link on the web site give food plants for different butterflies, I think I'll have to grow some of these!

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/foodplants.php#Milk-parsley

Milk-parsley is Peucedanum palustre

The little butterfly I thought might be an Adnis Blue because the revers wing looks identical to it, the description of the top and pictures of it is so much alike it's hard to tell, but I put it on the ID forum and kennedyH thinks it is the Common Blue (not so common!). It is distributed throughout the UK where the Adonis is only normally found on the south coast in isolated patches. This hot summer has me thinking anything is possible, as you have found bonitin.

I had Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) butterflies on the pink Buddleja, it is the first time I have seen them and they are supposed to be common. A Red Admiral turned up at the same time, later than the others, and I think they must have come on the same winds, they can fly thousands of kilometers on winds. Clever things aren't they!

The colouring on both looks like pictures of some I saw on a web site from the Canary Islands. When we get hot weather it mostly comes from Spain or Northern Africa, and Canary Islands are off the coast of North Africa.

The normal Red Admiral for here is Vanessa atalanta, under Nymphalidae, Vanessa vulcania is the one I think could be this late-comer.

Vanessa cardui has very bright colours in the pic from Canary Islands, the ones I had were very bright.

http://www.leps.it/

The Red Admiral on the left, Painted Lady on right. It's also strange that I saw these two feeding together quite often. I found myself wondering if they cross breed as they are the same family, like horses and donkeys.