Meadow Brown variant

A week ago I was watching what appeared to be a Meadow Brown when I noticed it had two white marks in its eye spot. Now one of the ways that you can distinguish the somewhat similar butterflies, Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers, is by seeing whether they have one or two white marks in their eye spot. Meadow Browns have one mark. There are other differences but when the butterfly is on a flower with its wings folded then this is a useful tool to identify it. However I was sure this was a Meadow Brown and I had not seen any Gatekeepers so far this year so I consulted the books. My butterfly book revealed that this was 'not an absolute rule, for one occasionally finds a Meadow Brown with two white pupils, but these generally occur in Scotland, far North of the Gatekeeper's range'. An internet forum revealed someone seeing a similar Meadow Brown in Devon. I have been looking more closely at Meadow Browns as there are plenty around and I have now seen more with two white marks in their eye spot. I have also today seen my first Gatekeepers of the season and they are of course quite different in profile when you look closely at the markings on their wings. So it could be that the two spot variant is more common than people think or maybe we have a genetic hot spot here for the variant or maybe the unusual hot weather somehow favours the 2-spotter.