Apples, pears and plums are ripening faster than we can eat them, so the bird table has been taken over by butterflies feeding on the fermenting juice of over-ripe fruit.
There were are least twenty red admirals and half a dozen
comma butterflies getting legless on alcoholic fruit juice in this afternoon’s warm
sunshine in the garden. When they are in such a lethargic, inebriated state
butterflies are very easy to approach and if they do fly they settle again
almost immediately.
Drinkers on the bird table ‘Last Chance’ saloon.
Comma butterflies on pears, a red admiral on a rotting apple, plus a bonus seven-spot ladybird that probably came to feed on the mould growing on the fruit.
Comma butterflies seem to have a particular liking for pear juice
A red admiral with its proboscis sunk deep in the hole left by a plum stalk, drinking sun-warmed plum juice
As sometimes happens, a fight broke out between drunkards when this red admiral and comma butterfly were competing for the same feeding cavity in a pear. Wing blows were exchanged and the comma prevailed. It seems even some butterflies can become aggressive if they over-indulge with alcohol, although most seem to just become semi-comatose, to the point where they’ll crawl onto your finger rather than fly away if you poke them.
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