Butterflies To Inspire This Summer

Warm summer days might not be the first thing that gets people thinking about scarves, but if there is one thing that might prompt someone to get a beautiful butterfly print scarf in the UK, it is the sight of some beautiful butterflies.

These delightful insects will be flitting around this summer and providing delight and fascination to young and old alike. This interest increases further when one learns to identify the different species that visit these shores.

Butterflies you are likely to see this summer include the Small Tortoiseshell, a common sight with its orange-brown wings and black markings. Similar colours - but different patterns - can be seen on the Peacock, Painted Lady and Red Admiral.

Of course, reds and oranges are attractive, but for many there is nothing like a blue butterfly and the Common Blue is the type you are most likely to see, with others including the Holly Blue.

A fun fact about blue butterflies is they are not really blue at all - the colour is an optical illusion caused by the microscopic structures of the wings that scatter all light waves in the visible spectrum except blue. This same effect (Rayleigh scattering) causes the sky to look blue.

The only exception to this is the markings on the Olivewing butterfly, which are, uniquely, produced by blue pigment. But the Olivewing is a Latin American butterfly, so you won’t see it fluttering round a meadow here.

It is not just reds, oranges and blues that you can enjoy in the butterfly world. There are some dazzling white specimens too, such as the Large White and the Marbled White, plus the lemon yellow Brimstone.

Fun as it can be to spot and identify these creatures on a sunny day in July, it can also be great to treasure the memory and sight with a butterfly-patterned scarf. That way, when the summer has passed and the days are getting cold again, one feature of warm summer days can persist.