The Peacock butterfly is one of Ireland’s resident butterflies and is a frequent visitor to Ballyyahoo.
It is one of the easiest to identify owing to the distinctive blue ‘eyespot’ shape on the wings.
Underneath the wings, they are quite dark – without markings.
The Peacock flies all over Ballyyahoo and indeed in most of Europe but can also be seen as far away as Japan.
In Ballyyahoo, the Peacock is often seen fluttering around flowers and it loves to gather nectar from wild plants.
Wild Plants Loved by Butterflies
The female lays her eggs on the underside of nettles and since there are many, many nettles in Ballyyahoo – there is no shortage of butterflies.
Biddy, The Witch of Ballyyahoo grows a great deal of sedum as well as nettles in her garden and this makes her garden a favourite landing place for butterflies.
Ireland has 32 resident butterflies and there are also 3 migrant species.
Butterflies can move surprisingly fast – especially when you want to get a little closer to try and identify them.
This can make them a little bit difficult to identify.
If you would like to learn how to identify the butterflies you see in your area there is a wonderful little crash course in butterfly identification available at Biodiversity Ireland.
I hope you are enjoying these nature stories from Ballyyahoo. All the stories and photographs you see here are free because the aim of Ballyyahoo is to encourage children to love nature.
If you and your children enjoy visiting the site and want to support Ballyyahoo, the best way to do that is to buy one of the Ballyyahoo books.
Maggie Many Cats and Other Stories is a complete collection of Ballyyahoo stories.
Each story contains clickable links to educational resources on this site so your child can discover the joys of nature as they read.
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