Butterfly mobile - butterfly waltz...

 The butterfly-motif serviettes I bought months ago finally found themselves cut, drawn and quartered to become a bead-and-butterfly mobile. It actually looks quite good 'in the flesh', especially when the evening sun sends a myriad of rainbow glints from the crystal and glass, dancing along the walls... Unfortunately, it most certainly isn't photogenic!

I tried and tried to get a decent photo, but to no avail... I should try to film the play of light, but while waiting for that, here's a butterfly waltz...
The mobile beads come from a fantastic goblin's lair of a shop - full of string upon string of magical crystal and glass...

The butterfly in the beautiful video above is the Monarch, the North American species which makes the epic annual migratory journey between Canada and Mexico. In their thousands, the butterflies set off for warmer climates in August, and return to the North in the following spring, often overwintering in sites along the Rockies. The Monarch, thus named by an American entomologist in the 19th century because it was "one of the largest butterflies, and rules a vast domain", follows the same flight paths established generations before.

Joel Sartore National Geographic- How I wish I could take photos like these!!!

 These flight patterns are hard-wired into these simple creatures, so that they are simply driven to embark on a journey that spans thousands of miles, and are lead to the same roosting sites, even the same trees. This instinctive navigation is guided by the position of the sun in the sky and a chemical compas linked to a circadian clock, based in the butterfly antennae. Like certain migratory birds, the Monarch is thus equipped to 'know' if it is aligned with the earth's magnetic field, Unlike birds, however, a complete migration is not carried out in the lifespan of a single butterfly, but will be performed by several generations.

White pale (Cabbage White?) butterflies seem to be the most common variety here...

I love the colours of the Monarch - the wings look like bronze-coloured stained glass - their black-lace veins and lighter patches seem to dazzle in the light. The visual effect of hundreds of these butterflies dripping off leaves and branches, carpetting the forest floor is magical, whilst the strange noise produced by thousands of wings is striking too.

One of my modest little Chalk Blue butterflies at the end of the season - looking a bit battered and ragged...

 Fragile as any butterfly, often sensitive to dramatic changes in temperature, the Monarch is nevertheless able to fend off birds and mammals to whom they would otherwise fall prey, due to the presence of toxics in its body, originating in a substance found in the plants they feed off; the milkweed...

Another tattered Chalk Blue - almost transparent this time!

 I have come across a few tiny, jewel-like blue butterflies here - Chalk Blue, I think. I even saw a majestic Swallowtail at one point, in the most unlikely of places; a building site. However, the most magical moment this summer was cycling through a cloud of hundreds of white butterflies that had all congregated in one spot, only to fly up and around as the bikes passed. I saw a rather more modest cluster another day and was again entranced, although the spell was broken slightly when I noticed what had mesmerized this fluttering group... A heap of manure!

Still not very photogenic, but too bad...