Hey folks, hope you’re well 🙂

Today’s dreamy looking photo is an orange tip butterfly – one of our spring/summer regulars.

The dreamy look is courtesy of some nice bokeh as a result of sun glinting of the river in the background. Ah, so nice to have sunny days again!

Most people would post a shot of the orange tip with its wings spread out so you can see its… orange tips, but I quite like its under-wing pattern, too, and you can just see some of the orange through the white.

The pretty little flower it’s resting on is one of its main food sources – garlic mustard. It’s also a tasty one for foragers, if you get the younger leaves before it flowers. The flowers are quite nice themselves, though they pack a garlic-spicy punch that you probably wouldn’t expect from looking at them. I had plans to make some humous from it, but took too long and now they’ve all flowered.

These plants are native to the UK and Europe (as are orange tip butterflies) but invasive in the US and other parts of the world – so if you eat them you’re not just getting a tasty free snack, but also helping your local ecosystem, too!

Here’s a picture of another orange tip showing off its orange wings, for those that haven’t seen one before. They’re ubiquitous but lovely nonetheless ☺️ It’s resting on a cuckoo flower, one of the orange tip’s other main foods (and caterpillar sites). It’s also another tasty one for foragers, with an equally unexpected peppery flavour that is really nice in salads.

Thanks for visiting,

Kaylin