{"id":3770,"date":"2020-03-30T13:01:12","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T13:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/?p=3770"},"modified":"2020-03-30T13:03:13","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T13:03:13","slug":"spring-butterflies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/?p=3770","title":{"rendered":"Spring butterflies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While in the garden on Tuesday 24 March I spent some time watching two buzzards soaring higher and higher above me in a beautiful clear blue sky.\u00a0 Only when I looked down I noticed three very mobile butterflies &#8211; peacock, brimstone and comma.\u00a0 No doubt these butterflies have recently emerged from hibernation and are now busy searching for early flowering plants for nectar, which can be in very short supply at this time of year.\u00a0 In spring brimstone are said to nectar on dandelion, primrose, cowslip, bugle and bluebell.\u00a0 Comma may be seen looking for nectar on sallow and blackthorn flowers. Peacock may search blackthorn, cuckooflower and dandelions for early sources of nectar. I attached photos of the peacock and small tortoiseshell butterflies taking a short break to bask in a sunny sheltered corner of the garden on 26 and 27 March respectively.<a href=\"http:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/?attachment_id=3771\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3771\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3771\" src=\"http:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Red-Admiral.1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Red-Admiral.1.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Red-Admiral.1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Red-Admiral.1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Red-Admiral.1-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Red-Admiral.1-450x300.jpg 450w, https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Red-Admiral.1-600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/?attachment_id=3772\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3772\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3772\" src=\"http:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Small-tortoisehell.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Small-tortoisehell.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Small-tortoisehell-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Small-tortoisehell-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Small-tortoisehell-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Small-tortoisehell-450x300.jpg 450w, https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Small-tortoisehell-600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While in the garden on Tuesday 24 March I spent some time watching two buzzards soaring higher and higher above me in a beautiful clear blue sky.\u00a0 Only when I looked down I noticed three very mobile butterflies &#8211; peacock, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/?p=3770\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[71,18],"tags":[424,425],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3770"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3773,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3770\/revisions\/3773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}