..........Have you ever seen a Common Spot like the one pictured ? I don't recall having seen one with a gap between upper and lower flowers on the spike. I've been looking through my Frog Orchid photos and have some that I took at Bald Hill in the Chilterns which show the 'frog profile, like yours...

Thought some may be interested in a couple of "Orchid Oddities " ........... These are of interest to me. Although many books state that " there is no obvious resemblance to a frog ", your photo demonstrates the fact very well :) I shall amend some of my comments on this species...

Memory is fallible but I seem to recall that Speckled Woods in the Channel Islands (where I used to work regularly some 40 years ago) were of that intermediate background colour similar to those you found on the Scillies. Your memory is fine, Jack. The book ' Channel Islands Lepidopera' by Michael ...

Thank you Goldie! I wasn't sure about including the Puffin on this site but, with that colourful beak, I feel it qualifies as an honorary butterfly

I agree with the other comments and would also note that you can use 'cut and paste' to add the same information to several photos - something I frequently use when adding file comments.

Mike

I have recently returned from a family holiday on the Scilly Isles, where the weather was considerably better than the reports I was hearing from the mainland. We enjoyed a reasonable amount of very warm sunshine, interspersed with occasional, sometimes heavy, showers. On a previous trip, I had fail...

I would be grateful for confirmation on this blue please. I was thinking Small Blue, but I live in East Anglia where they are not resident. Failing that could it be something blown in off the continent? All photographs are of the same example in different light. Congratulations on your surprising '...

.... A bit of help needed now - question for all the expert photographers. I assume this is a depth of field problem. Rubbish shot I know but I tried to grab a shot of CB and SSB together, one behind the other. There was no way I could get the 2 of them in focus. The camera was probably set to abou...

I regard all 'cloud' storage as ephemeral - even if they don't 'go under', they can always hold you to ransom with price increases! Good to see you posting some more excellent images

Mike

Wurzel wrote: ................ It was a cracking day today and what with getting home early I bagged plenty of Brownie pints - bring on the Small Pearls

I took your typo literally and imagined you musing over a successful day, with a couple of good pints of brown ale

Mike

Just to add - your photo is of a female, which doesn't have the orange markings that give the species its name. Females are much easier to confuse with other whites

Clearly, Jack, we are entering the new 'Dark Ages'. With no more Continental migrants to be allowed into this Country, there will soon be orders issued for Long-tail Blues, QoS Fritillaries, etc., to be destroyed on sight. Please don't be misled into thinking this might be a spoof related to the dat...

Even I am not old enough to remember Epimenides personally but this Wikipedia article is quite informative. He seems to have become famous because St.Paul assumed that all Cretans could not be trusted (i.e. were liars) but, If we assume the statement is false and that Epimenides is lying about all C...

Good to see Spring is happening in the North West Dull, damp, and generally miserable down here in Oxon, still.

Mike

At lunch-time today, I saw my first Brimstone of the year flying through my garden, so I decided it was time to make my first visit to Dry Sandford Pit – my local nature reserve. Most years, I make my first visit there in March, although it was late April, last year, before the horrible cold Spring ...

My favourite is another photo taken on one of those really hot days, last Summer, during a memorable visit to Bucknell Wood, Northants:
Mike

Always good to welcome a newcomer. You are well-placed for many excellent sites to visit. If all the recent 'doom and gloom' reports about insect extinction are true, then you'd better get a move on!

Goldie M wrote:My favourite has got to be the shot I took at Hall-Lee-Brook, I spotted the Speckie through the Blackberry bushes and took the
shot quickly hoping it wouldn't fly a way it was the 2nd of August.Goldie

What a lovely image, Goldie. I feel it would make a splendid painting.

This one is from a favourite location along the 'Roman Road', which is now a sheltered grassy track, leading onto Otmoor from the village of Beckley.
Mike

This is another of the photos that I took during a memorable visit to the local Garden Centre, during the hot and dry summer. Numbers of both Small and GvWhites were 'mud-puddling' where hoses had been used on the plants. I have already shown the GvWs, earlier in this series, so now it's time for th...