This can't be right, can it?

[Dunk Fairley]

Found this Peacock Butterfly on a wood pile I was sorting for a friend on Christmas eve. First one I've seen alive, but surely it ain't right for this time of year, is it?

 

Surprised I haven't seen one before, they're supposed to be a few around here. It's just a shame it won't make it in this weather. I left it on a lavender bush.

[chesters1]

yes they overwinter in secluded "warm" places ,probably a few more around the garden

[Vagabond]

We see two or three most winters - they seem to like our garden shed, and a bright warm day will have them fluttering at the shed window.

 

Less welcome are over-wintering queen wasps - they get killed on sight.

[Dunk Fairley]

Well, you learn something every day! I never realised they tucked up warm.

 

I see an awful .ot of wasps in lofts at this time of year, when I'm sorting out the header tanks to people's boilers, which they never get serviced until the week before Xmas, when they stop working!

[Alan Stubbs]

It may not be exactly related to the subject in hand, but it was a cause for some concern that the Bewick Swans and Pink Footed geese were a lot later arriving from the arctic into the NE of the UK this year.

 

Another thing I heard on the radio only this morning, was that the RSPB reckon that as a result of a late and wet spring this year, there was a significant lack of insects and as a result a shortage of food for chicks for a lot of the breeding population of woodland and garden birds this year.

 

Still, a lovely butterfly Dunk.