For once a holly blue butterfly was resting with its wings open rather than folded. It was resting on an ivy leaf – one of the food plants of the caterpillars, and it may have been advertising its presence hoping to attract a mate.
Water lily leaves lying on the surface of Nursery Pond. The red colour is from growth hormone, and is a feature of new leaves of many species of plants.
Holly blue butterflies are tricky to photograph. They’re one of the smaller British butterflies. In the air, their flight involves so many seemingly random twists and turns that I find it impossible to get one in focus. When they land, as this one did, they spend most of the time with their wings folded. In that position, the deeper blue of their upper wings is hidden.
There seems to be some controversy about how the Judas tree gets its name (at least according to the five minutes effort I put into an internet search). Is it from the New Testament character (various convoluted stories)? Because early Mormons fancied some kind of resemblance to an Old Testament character (but wouldn’t that make it a Joshua tree)? Or a “false friends” translation from its French name, which actually means tree of Judea (its region of origin is in the eastern Mediterranean)?
Whatever, its red-purple flowers appear before the leaves in the early spring. This one is planted near the Conseervatory in West Park.
A week and a half after they hatched, the first sighting of one of the coot chicks out on the water. Even then, it never ventured more than an inch or two from the nest. Its siblings stayed in the safety of dry land, with the resident parent also sitting tight watching over them.
Chocolate mining bees (Andrena scotica) are one of the earlier bees to appear in spring. Since the weather began to be warmer, there seem (finally!) to have been quite a few around.