There has been a mass emergence of Marbled White butterflies here and this has to be to correspond with the flowering of my favourite meadow plant, Greater Knapweed, Centaurea scabiosa.

Should you not be familiar with this plant, then let me introduce it to you. It is quite a sturdy plant that grows on chalk and that looks a bit like a thistle but has none of the prickliness. It certainly has top quality nectar because it is rare to come across a Knapweed flower that doesn’t have a butterfly or a bee on it and the Marbled Whites in particular love it.

I can’t stop taking photos of it:

But even without a butterfly, moth or bee, it is still providing food for a surprising number of beetles:

And, well, here are some more photos of it just because:

My favourite meadow plant by some considerable distance.