Tree Peony

The tree peony has finally bloomed too and this time I tried putting a piece of white paper behind the flower so as not to see so much of the foliage. 

Moth

Yesterday morning just before 7 am when we opened the door to let the dog out we found this amazing creature clinging to the door frame, a Great Peacock Silk Moth which must have recently hatched from it´s cocoon because it was absolutely pristine. It measured 14 cms from wing tip to wing tip. It stayed in the same place until the direct sunlight reached it at about 3 pm and then it slowly lifted up it´s wings and antennae, as can be seen from the second photo, and launched itself off into the trees with hardly a flap. Apparently there are 5 of these huge night flying moths native to Europe and 3 in Andorra. We have often seen the caterpillars, huge, fat and yellowish green with light blue hairy warts all over them. Hopefully this wonderful moth manages to find himself (apparently the females don´t have feathers on their antennae)  a mate and not end up as a meal for some fat greedy Jay of which we have an abundance here!!

Peonies

At last the magnificent plant peonies have bloomed! It´s hard to do justice to their beauty though. I´m just waiting for the tree peonies to bloom now and their blossoms are even larger and more extravagant than these.........yum....... one of my favorite flower beings, although as with colors, I hardly ever met one I didn´t like !!!