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Posts tagged ‘Butterflies’

Jul 11

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Aerial zebras

Marbled White Butterfly – Melanargia galathea (Male)

Melanargia galathea – Male

Readers of my last post about my visits to Collard Hill may have got the impression that it was a disappointment. It wasn’t, the view from the Polden Hills is breathtaking and freshly emerged specimens of the monochromatic magnificence that is the Marbled White Melanargia galathia were abundant. I’m often asked which is my favourite butterfly and that’s a really tough call as I have so many. But, this is possibly my favourite ‘white’ even if technically it’s a ‘brown’.

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Jul 5

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Common Blue

Common Blue – Polyommatus icarus (Male)

Polyommatus icarus – Male

Last Saturday morning was spent pootling about on a favourite chalk ridge taking photos of powder blue butterflies and scarlet moths. All rather glorious really. It was warm and overcast, buzzards were mewing overhead and skylarks were ascending to the heavens. I was in heaven too as the conditions were ideal for photography and despite the fabulous weather I had the whole hillside to myself – didn’t see another soul. How fab is that?

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Jun 25

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His Grace and The Grizzle

Grizzled Skipper Butterfly – Pyrgus malvae

Pyrgus malvae

Slowly working my way across a hillside covered in yellow cowslip searching for my first Duke of Burgundy butterfly of 2013 I notice a moth-like flicker of dark chocolate brown arc into the dry grass further up the slope. With my eyes fixed on the spot where it lands I move cautiously upwards to find a freshly emerged Grizzled Skipper Pyrgus malvae. It’s not ‘His Grace’ but a real stunner all the same and another first for my year list.

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Jun 17

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Pearly king

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary – Bolaria selene

Bolaria selene – Male

This little orange firecracker is a Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary Boloria selene, a male I believe, photographed on the 9th June at Bentley Wood. This was one of the first butterflies I photographed last May when I got my macro lens and I can’t tell you how much I was looking forward to viewing the results. Particularly as this was a new species for me. What a disappointment then to discover the vast majority were either blurred or just slightly out of focus. To be fair I did manage to get a few decent shots, one of which was shortlisted for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust’s 50th anniversary photographic competition, but believe me that was more down to luck than judgement.  Read more

Jun 11

Eastern Baton Blue

Eastern Baton Blue butterfly – Pseudophilotes vicrama

Pseudophilotes vicrama

My recent trip to Cyprus was a little disappointing. Although I did get to see many hundreds of butterflies they proved remarkably difficult to photograph. For starters it was way hotter than expected, peaking at around 37 degrees. It was clear I’d misjudged the timing by 2 weeks to a month – the majority of the wildflowers were burnt to a crisp.
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Oct 2

A female comma

Comma Butterfly – Polygonia c-album (Female)

Polygonia c-album – Female

The Comma Polygonia c-album is one of the earliest butterflies you might encounter each spring. I saw my first this year on the 25th March. Generally I’m sad to say that for many butterfly species numbers are in decline and this extremely wet summer really hasn’t helped. However, the Comma is one of our few butterfly success stories. Just over a century ago it was on the verge of extinction in Britain with fewer than half a dozen records in many southern counties. Then, just after the First World War it started to recover again. No one is really sure why it declined or why it has recovered but since the 1950s it has expanded its range rapidly making this raggedy-winged butterfly an increasingly common sight again, even in gardens. Read more

Jul 15

Marbled White

Marble White Butterfly

Melnargia galathea – Female

This morning I reluctantly trudged through the mud down to Jones’s Mill nature reserve to do my monthly Riverfly survey. To be honest I’m not always in the mood for it and sometimes would rather be doing something else, like laying in bed. It can get a bit monotonous in as much as I can pretty much predict the result and quantity of each of the eight species I’ll record. I guess there’s only so many river invertebrates you can count before you start to lose the will to live. Yet the sun was doing it’s best to steam some puddles and as I splashed across Big 40 towards the wood my mood was lifted by the sight of dancing butterflies, a mixture of orange-splashed Meadow Browns and bitter-chocolate Ringlets. To lift my damp spirits further, just as I started my first kick-sample I flushed a metallic blue-green Beautiful Demoiselle damselfly Calopteryx virgo from the reeds. Sadly my camera was in my rucksack. Not a lot of use in there is it? Read more

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