Hi Dave
According to "Discover Butterflies in Britain" Durlston Country Park is a good site in Dorset for Adonis Blue. I went there earlier in the year to look for Lulworth skippers and it a great place to visit, but I don't know if there are any Adonis flying yet
Dave

I went back to Whitecross Green Wood Friday afternoon, the sun shone brightly and I finally managed a snap of a brown hairstreak. This particular individual was very obliging and sat on the same flower head for at least twenty minutes, much to the delight of several others as well as myself. Once ag...

In the previous post there are several references to the need for a tripod and also the weight of the gear that has to be carried around. I'm not a fan of tripods or monopods and on several occasion have extolled the virtues of IS lenses. Whilst wandering around the photographic web sites I came upo...

Alexander and Brian, thanks for your help
Dave

I went to Whitecross Green Wood looking for Brown Hairstreak with no success except a possible fleeting glimpse, however there was an abundance of dragonflies including these which I think are darters but I'm not sure which flavour. Could somebody help? http://upload2.postimage.org/338861/unknown1_5...

Round 1. I'm an ardent Canon fan and so this opinion is totally biased. I swapped from Nikon to Canon when I swapped from film to digital. I researched a number of web sites not least of which was http://www.fredmiranda.com/ and magazines before I made up my mind. The main advantages that Canon had ...

I tend to use auto-focus because it takes a lot less time than focusing manually and sometimes you only get one fleeting chance of a picture. However some auto-focus lenses are a lot faster than others and a lot less prone to hunting which might effect the way you choose to use it. The only time whe...

This afternoon I was sitting in the garden hoping that one of the passing holly blues would actually stop, they did not but this did.



Dave

That's a cracking picture of a dragonfly, the painted lady ain't bad either
Dave

I made my first trip ever to Aston Rowant yesterday afternoon and it did everything it said on the can. Here are a few pictures: http://upload2.postimage.org/219552/brimstone_5675.jpg http://upload2.postimage.org/219558/chalkhillblue_5665.jpg http://upload2.postimage.org/219567/silverspottedskipper_...

Would you mind saying where on the reserve you saw the silver spotted skippers? I'm going to visit the site in the near future and hope to get a few pics.
Cheers
Dave

Guy and Mike, many thanks

There is a small pond in my garden and this year I have seen about half a dozen dragonflies all looking very similar emerging from it. They were reliably identified on this site as Southern Hawkers or at least one of them was. http://upload2.postimage.org/175388/southernhawker1.jpg However the last ...

Thanks Lance
I was hoping that the dark fringes through the white outer border of the wings were a bit Adonis blueish. Talk about a triumph of optimism over reality
Cheers
Dave

I have a 400D and a 300mm IS zoom lens plus a 100 macro and a canon 430 EX flash gun so it should be easy for me to advise. However it depends on what you intend to use them for. I like to take pictures of butterflies and dragonflies using natural light whenever possible but when I'm trying to take ...

Could somebody name that blue?

Thanks
Dave

In my opinion its only a matter of time before anything goes, and the end justifies the means. To some extent this has already happened in landscape photography. There is a technique called HDR (High Dynamic Range) where one scene is exposed a number of times with a different exposure each time eg e...

I intend to visit Silchester Common in the next week in the hope of finding a silver studded blue
Can anyone who knows the area advise me as to the best place to look and where to park etc.?
Cheers
Dave

I went to Hexton chalk pit on Friday and after searching for Chalk hill blues at several other sites recently I was delighted to find them in abundence. They outnumbered the other species, even the Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers. The site is only a small area but covered in wild flowers and butterfli...