A Rare Sighting Of A Peacock

This posting is for my faithful fellow blogger, Flighty.  In his blog (https://flightplot.wordpress.com), he has occasionally mentioned the Peacock Butterfly.  In fact, his photograph of one made me familiar with its beautiful wing markings and made me wish that I would some day see one.  This was very unlikely because it is a European butterfly and, as far as I knew, was not to be found in North America.

Well ...

In late July I was strolling through the Montreal Botanical Gardens looking for anything to photograph and I came to a bush with lovely purple flowers with butterflies fluttering in large numbers all over it!  I saw Painted Lady butterflies and Red Admiral butterflies and then I noticed something unusual. I went in close and saw to my astonishment, the butterfly that Flighty has blogged about! It was gorgeous.  

In getting photographs I stalked this poor creature to the point that it finally perched high up in a tree and I'm sure it was giving me a stern butterfly glare!

After doing some reading on-line I have since found out that an individual Peacock butterfly was first recorded in the Montreal area in 1997 and, in the twenty years hence, less than two dozen have been recorded in eastern Canada.

Here is an interesting article: http://m.espacepourlavie.ca/blogue/en/a-european-butterfly-quebec

Thank you Flighty for introducing me to this beautiful butterfly and thus making my sighting all the more exciting!