Norfolk
I have a patch of Scottish melancholy thistles established alongside a ditch in my garden. They came into bloom suddenly and gloriously at the weekend and at once became the centre of attraction for numerous bumble bees and other insects. The brilliant magenta flower heads diffuse a velvety lustre which attains the radiant beauty of a heliotrope aura in full sunshine, and I suspect that, as in many other “bee” flowers, ultra-violet light is emitted by the glowing florets. On the first day of opening, no butterflies of any kind appeared in the garden, although the weather was bright enough. On the second day there was a similar absence of these insects until suddenly, out of the blue, a wandering troupe of 10 large cabbage whites descended on the thistles and drank greedily of their nectar.
I happened to be looking on when this visitation took place and I had the impression that the butterflies materialised as though by magic out of the brightness of the sky, drawn down by the magnet of luminous colour. Every one of these insects was old and tattered, with much-frayed wing-margins. If they were migrants from the South, as appears likely at this season, they certainly reached their ultimate haven in my garden, because I found that after refreshing themselves on the thistles for less than half an hour, with intervals of airy dalliance in spiral and tumbling flight over the flowers, they made a wider exploration of the garden and discovered a wealth of cabbages. When clouds rolled up later in the day the butterflies flew off into some oak trees after the fashion of roosting red admirals.
