Identify the last butterfly of summer

 I saw a butterfly in a back garden in London

I wanted to identify it.

I discovered a handy guide which I could download. It was intended to help doing the butterfly count in the UK.

I had missed doing that in August, the end of the British summer. The butterfly count is done in autumn, unlike the bird count whi is in spring.

Many of the butterflies have helpfully descriptive names, regarding their colour or pattern. For eample, regarding colour, white, the large white, blue, red - the red admiral. 

If you are near enough to your butterfly to see patterns, there's the tortoiseshell, the marbled, the six spots, and the peacock with eyes on the large edge of the wings.

I allowed myself the luxury of being sidetracked into reading the difference between birds and bees and butterflies when it comes to spreading plants. I know that insects like my roses. Lavender is another attraction. Butterflies like bright colours, like the butterflies themselves. Bees and wasps cannot see colours and therefor go for defferent plants.

Useful Websites

butterflycount.org