Iphiclides Podalirius

-


















A little over a week ago a Finnish client of ours rescued this beautiful butterfly from our swimming pool. It was absolutely stunning but shivering and struggling to move a bit. We had another couple visiting from Belgium at the time and by luck they were biologists! So they knew exactly what to do, what type of flower the butterfly could reach to eat from, to regain forces. In fact they were very patient finding a flower where they could leave it to nurse itself back to strength! They also searched the net to show me what type it was and so I found out its latin name. (In Finnish, it belongs to the sail-butterfly family). If you click to enlarge the picture with the flower, you can see how it was hanging on to the flower with its dear life, exhausted.

This was the first time I had seen one of these butterflies around here - and today I saw yet another, close to the pool in the plum tree - then flying towards the dog pen - exactly where we had finally left the rescued butterfly 10 days ago! So I like to think it was the same one, happily recuperated, having made its home here. Whether it was, I don't know, but it is a beautiful addition to our garden, that is for sure!

A note of thanks for Katarina who took these pictures and kindly shared them with us!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Abandoned houses

-
Image
When you walk around Sintra and Lisbon you cannot but notice and wonder about some beautiful old buildings that look like they are abandoned and/or falling apart. It saddens many to see the potential of these houses going to waste just sitting there with broken or boarded up windows, roof half falling and the garden overgrown. Right across the street from us there is one such building and a few times a week I tell people the story of it. As the high fencing and basketball hoop lets you guess, it was 'Escola Academica' still about 20 years ago when we were building and moved here; a small private school. Once a beautiful building, full of life, the school mistress retired, the school lost its license, and for awhile after the death of the old school mistress, a family lived there with no rights to rental. When they were successfully evicted, we thought the house would be soon sold and were looking forward to new neighbors - with no luck until today. Many people wanted to...
Read more

Chalet Biester - the film set for Johnny Depp's 'Ninth Gate'

-
Image
Just a bit above the village, in our view, there is a mansion called Chalet Biester.  Its black roof with turquoise trimming causes a lot of questions and awakes the curiosity of many Sintra visitors.  No, it cannot be visited; yes, it is a private house.  No, I don't know who lives there now; yes, it is where the Roman Polanski  thriller ' The Ninth Gate' was filmed, starring Johnny Depp.  There and a bit of everywhere in Sintra. The Chalet Biester as seen from our pool, circled in red Chalet Biester photographed from the Casa da Vista deck Ernesto Biester, a Portuguese journalist and playwright of German origin, famous in his time,  ordered this mansion to be built in around 1880 from the architect José Luis Monteiro.  Its interior was conceived by the famous Italian that worked on Quinta da Regaleira, also in Sintra, and the sceneries of La Scala Opera in Milano, and theater São Carlos in Lisbon: Luigi Manini...
Read more

Oh, the wonderful Pastries and Bread!

-
Image
As I have mentioned before, I frequently walk in the mornings with my dog; up and down the hills, into the forest and mountain roads. Recently there has been an extra burden on my walks. It is lent, the 40 days between Carnival and Easter. Tradition says you give up something for those 40 days that is like an addiction. Some people give up coffee, others chocolate or cigarettes. I decided to give up bread and pastries made with white wheat flour. And this is the reason that climbing up the 400 meters to town is now doubly difficult: the bakeries and pastry shops open their doors even before Pandora and I take off from home, so we walk up to town with the irresistible scent of freshly baked goodies lingering over the town center, calling my name - which I am patiently (more and less) ignoring. Sintra is famous for its pastries. The pastries of Piriquita, travesseiros , are famous all over Portugal, and people cue up to buy them to take home by boxes. These long, sugar coded ...
Read more