Great idea for a topic. I'm looking forward to seeing what people come up with. I'll go with this Chakhill Blue. The focus isn't perfect, and there's that grass cutting the wing, but it was taken on a lovely sunny evening after work early in the CHB season, and I had the hillside to myself. A moment...

Saturday 27th August 2011 En route to a weekend with my parents in Hampshire, my family and I met up with them at Denbies Hillside. Target species: Adonis Blue and Silver-spotted Skipper. The weather had been very wet all week, and now there were heavy grey clouds but also sunny spells, and rather ...

Just returned from a successful trip. Reasonable numbers of Adonis and Silver Spotted Skippers to be seen when the sun came out.

Looks like a great trip. I'm planning a trip to Denbies on Sat 27th, so hopefully I'll still find some Adonis in fair condition. And it was news to me that SIlver Spotted Skippers are there, so that would be a great bonus. Still planning to go tomorrow. Dreadful weather recently, but better forecas...

I watched this Silver Studded Blue rather foolishly displaying at the entrance to the funnel of tube web spider's web (?)

Yes!

Centre-weighted or spot metering modes may also help if the subject is big enough. But generally I'd use exposure lock (AEL) as Clive suggested, although I don't typically go into Manual mode. Also if you shoot RAW, then even if you don't get the exposure perfectly right, you can often recover detai...

Roddick wrote:Thanks very much for providing the value able information here...!!
I have ordered the book and will get the delivery in a couple of days..!!

Me too! Looking forward to it. I got a "your goods have been dispatched" notice less than 2hrs after ordering, so thumbs up to Pemberley Books.

Thanks celery! Those instructions looks pretty thorough. Now I'll just hope for good weather.

Looks like a great trip. I'm planning a trip to Denbies on Sat 27th, so hopefully I'll still find some Adonis in fair condition. And it was news to me that SIlver Spotted Skippers are there, so that would be a great bonus. I've never been to Denbies before, so if there's particular guidance on where...

Some pictures from my holiday. See earlier entries in this diary for the words to go with them! #1 Scotch Argus at Arnside Knott. A UK first for me. http://www.pbase.com/dilettante/image/137250961/original.jpg #2 Grayling at Arnside Knott http://www.pbase.com/dilettante/image/137251307/original.jpg ...

Oh wow, that's great! I'm glad I asked now. Another new species for me then. Thanks very much Guy and David.

Taken at Arnside Knott a week or so ago. I think this is Dark Green, but I'm hoping against hope it may be High Brown. The third spot seems to indicate DGF though, right?

Thanks, Paul. I didn't do any scripting or web design. I just used the gallery-based system provided by the image hosting site pbase.com.

With the recent bad weather, we had almost decieded to curtail outrholiday and head home today, but the forecast for today improved and there was some blue sky this morning, so I decided to have one last try for NBA at the Blaikie Heugh site that Iain pointed me at. He had said that unless there's a...

Thanks Iain. In the unlikely event of better weather tomorrow, I might visit the Blaikie Heugh site you suggested. The frustrating thing about St Abb's is there's a sign telling you about the NBA, but the area is fenced off so you can't get in to see them. But David Newland's book says they're often...

Thanks Gibster. That scorpion fly sequence is pretty gruesome!

Tuesday 9th August 2011 In surprisingly good weather, sunny but rather windy, we walked along the lovely rocky Berwickshire coast from Coldingham Bay to St Abb's head, where I hoped to find Northern Brown Argus. Soon after entering the St Abb's nature reserve, I saw my first Wall of the year, one o...

Thanks for the replies both of you. I'm planning to walk from Coldingham Bay to St Abbs tomorrow, so it sounds like I stand a chance. Seeing Walls would be good too. My son saw one at Lindisfarne Castle today, but I missed it and have yet to see one this year.

This week I'm staying near St Abb's Head, where I'd been hoping to see Northern Brown Argus (having failed to find them at Arnside last week). Alas the weather is pretty dreadful, but tomorrow we're at least forecast sunny intervals, if cold (16C) and windy (18 mph). So can anyone advise where I mig...