Garden butterflies

An hour in the sunny conditions this morning enabled me to snap the visitors to the buddliea bush in the garden. Click on the photos to enlarge. The top photo depicts either a female or juvenile kestrel. The first butterfly shown is a large white, the scourge of gardens if you're growing brassicas or nasturtiums, where the female lays the eggs on the plant and the green and yellow caterpillar hatch with voracious appetites, devouring whole cabbages, sometimes in a day. The second shows a red admiral, a migrant butterfly that arrives here in April/May from the continent and then lays eggs that hatch in the second emergence, around the beginning of August. Some of the later hatching eggs will hibernate over winter and emerge to lay eggs in April time. The 3rd is the unmistakable peacock whilst the 4th is the common small white. Finally, a very old and faded example of a comma, showing the wear and tear from a month or so on the wing. Probable causes of the damage will be territorial fights with other butterflies and also pecks from birds

Also of note this evening, 6 sand martins flew over the chapel, heading south.