Return to the Butterfly Valley and a butterfly winner!

Last year was the first visit we made to the Butterfly Valley during our September holiday to Rhodes. It was such a memorable place that we decided to return this year and if possible walk down as well as up the valley. It was a blazing hot day when we arrived and we were so pleased to escape into the beautiful cool valley. We came armed with a packed lunch (we always do this as there is nothing worse that finding somewhere beautiful and then having to leave it to find something to eat and drink).

We found the cooling stream flowing in front of us as we entered.

We made our way up hill until the valley opened out

If you look at the next photo, where I have zoomed in, on the bottom of the tree to the left you will see the start of the multitude of butterflies

Look carefully......

Here they are...thousands and thousand of them

Around the trunks

And literally dripping from every leaf. The effect is quite magical and every so often a group takes off and there is a flurry of the red of their wings as they take flight.

This year we looked into history of them a little more. It turns out that all the butterflies are of one type;
Panaxia quadripunctaria. And they are actually  a type of moth, the Jersey Moth. On Rhodes they migrate to this one valley and spend from June to September here as adults.
I managed to get a of photo showing them with their wings out

On this visit we also spotted more of the wildlife, including lots of wonderful freshwater crabs

Have you spotted him here........................

 well hello there Mr Crab!







We also spotted some cool lizards basking in the dappled sunshine

After lunch we wandered back down the valley and saw a part we had not visited before with cool deep ponds

We felt privileged to be able to witness such a unique event which only takes place for a few months of the year.

All this butterfly talk very neatly brings me on to the other part of this post which is to announce the winner of my 100th post giveaway.

The names went into my holiday hat.......drum roll..........................

and out came....................

Teresa- one of my American blogging buddies!  Teresa chose my Gardener's Delight bag charm as her favourite and guess what features on it..

  

Yes, a little butterfly, amongst the ladybird and flower lampwork beads and the basket of flowers charms!

Congratulations Teresa, I shall be in contact with you and will get this off to you as soon as I can . Teresa has had a tough time recently as her dear little grandaughters have moved a long, long way away from her, I really hope this might cheer her up.

Thank you everyone for your very helpful comments - it really was the most useful feedback. I really appreciate you taking the time to leave them.

 As the number one favourite design was the "Tea for Two"
 I have decided to put that one for sale in my Etsy shop. I will also be listing some new bag charms in the coming weeks including a sewing and a knitting themed set. Watch this space. They are great stocking or cracker fillers (dare I mention the C word in September ;0)










Summer has returned here for the weekend and we have got back up into the mid 20oc, which is lovely. The garden is still just about hanging on to its summer bedding, a real bonus weekend. I hope you have enjoyed your weekend. I shall be back soon with one last post from Rhodes, just to keep the sunshine levels topped up for us all.

Bye for now,

Jane x