"Sacha" wrote ..
Fluttering around the garden and one of the green houses yesterday, at
least 5 people saw a very large sky blue butterfly. By very large, it
was described as being about 5 or 6" across! Even allowing for the
exaggeration of memory and reducing that to 3 or 4", it's still pretty
big. Does anyone know what that might be or whether we have an escapee
from the Buckfastleigh butterfly farm? And how far can butterflies
roam, anyway? Any (polite) suggestions would be welcomed as to ID

Could they have mistaken a hawkmoth for a butterfly? They are pretty
big, and I think there is a blue one ...

I'm trying to find an illustration with size attached. I'll hunt for the
insect book....

I do hope you find what it is and where it's come from. We saw, two years
running on our old allotment site, a large jet black butterfly with white
dots along it's wind edges, and which flew unlike a normal butterfly but
fast and straight like a bird, but never managed to track the species down
other than it wasn't European.

--
Regards
Bob H
17mls W. of London.UK