Our Winter temperatures are showing themselves to be 2 degrees Celsius higher than usual for the time of year. This is said to be due to persistent high-pressure systems blocking to the east, enabling very mild northerly winds to continue blowing from the north down the country.
On days when it is not raining, we are having very cold early mornings followed by a gloriously hot sunny day.
On such a hot sunny afternoon, the other day, I happened to be passing one of my favourite locations for Long-tailed Blue and Common Blue photography during Summer.
To my delight, there they still were. Not as many as I see in Summer, nevertheless there were at least six different blue butterflies flicking about and soaking up the sun. See my photos of them, below.
As a side issue, our unusually warm temperatures for the time of year also means that we still have wasps, aphids, praying mantis and other bugs we wouldn't usually see at this time, still about - and I still have Monarch caterpillars coming along, but that's another story.