Winter Butterflies at RHS Wisley

Photographic results of a visit to RHS Wisley and the annual winter butterfly season in the main tropical glasshouse. They have been doing this for several years apparently, and I would urge you to go next year (but not on the same day I go!) as it is a wonderful experience and three minutes from the M25, one minutes from the A3.

Malachite - Siproeta Stelenes

The most beautiful Butterfly there on the day, I preferred them to the Blue Morpho's that everyone was getting excited about, the photographs just don't do it justice.

Tree Nymph - Idea Leuconoe

Another stunning Butterfly, the printed cards, which seem to have been prepared for the whole season, don't have all the butterflies you find on the day, I guess the suppliers have to work with whatever chrysalises they have at a given moment. On the card this is shown as a black and white one, but as you can see, when we went they had a tint of honey staining.

Clipper - Parthenos Sylvia

I kept calling this the 'Tiger-striped one', and it was one of the more numerous ones. I didn't get a shot of one closed, some seem to settle open, so you can't get a shot of the outside, some seem to settle closed so you can't get a shot of them open! Anyone watching might think they don't want to co-operate with human photographers!

Clockwise from top left;

Not sure what this first one was, the card had a 'Postman' (Heliconius Melpomene)but that was black and red, and when we did see one, it was so far removed from the illustration on the identification card, it wasn't until we got home and checked the book that we could say it was a Postman. There was nothing like this one though, it may be a variety of Clipper? Just sorted all the Photographs into separate folders, which helped make sense of them all, this IS the Malay Lacewing! I'll post the others in a day or two.

The Blue Morpho (Morpho Peleides), these were the biggest, and among the more active, and kept landing on people! They are stunning 'in the flesh', but for me didn't quite beat the Malachites.

A Scarlet Swallowtail (Papillo Rumanzovia), these were very much past their best when we went (late February), there were a few, slow to wake in the morning, and very faded, this was one of the more remarkable examples.

Pretty sure this last one is a Malay Lacewing (Cethosia Biblis) open, the card shows a far more orange one closed, so this is probably a variant, therefore the Latin name is probably not quite right? This is a brown variant of the Lacewing.