Sunday was a brilliant day for butterflies, with my first three Speckled woods of the year, each in a different location, all basking on hedgerows and flitting out to defend their territories as I passed by.

With its rich chocolately brown background colour mixed with small circular dollops of creamy yellow, it’s almost like a living crème egg … or is my imagination just being overly affected by the bombarding of pre-Easter advertisements?

My brilliant guide book, Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, tells me that the Speckled wood was once called the Wood argus, the name Argus coming from the ‘many-eyed shepherd of Greek mythology’. That seems a very apt name for this beautiful creature.