Brainwashed?

I don't know how I got drawn into the Purple Empire; I think Mr Oates must have brainwashed or hypnotised me when I saw him earlier in the year. The realisation came on Wednesday morning; it had started of as a very ordinary Wednesday morning, but then I looked at twitter!

"Drop what you're doing & visit #Fermyn. Don't come later than Sun."

I think the word "Fermyn" was the trigger; perhaps it had been used in the hypnosis, because shortly afterwards I found myself on the M1 heading north. I'm not quite sure what my boss thought when I rang her at 7a.m. begging to take annual leave and disturbing her morning bath: probably not a lot, because she knows me well!

This was my second visit to Fermyn and I have decided that the sun must shine brightly in Northamptonshire! It was baking! I wished that I had arrived earlier as the paths were emptying of emperors, but I left four hours later glowing (men perspire, women merely glow!), smelling (of fishy emperor food), as red as an admiral, but contented!

I nearly did it all again today when I dipped into Twitter and read 'purple emperor' and 'West Sussex', but I think that would have scared Mr Oates as I've already pursued him twice in the last week! My aim had been to take higher magnification photographs of the scales and the eyes and I think I succeeded! Most of all, though, I just wanted to have another close encounter with this fascinating butterfly and listen to the beat of its wings as it circled round me, and see the sunlight on wings. I was not disappointed.

I felt that the emperor needed to have more pixels than other creatures on my website, so here is a new page consisting of four photos from this year and three from last. I might add more, but for now I hope you enjoy these.

Rachel :)

http://www.rachelpiper.me.uk/emperor.html