Is there a particuarl insect repellent people on here recommend to keep ticks at bay or are they very much of a muchness? I agree with others about DEET but it is corrosive stuff, if it gets near cameras, sunglasses etc. Might not be too good for the 'trademark' ballgown and jewellery, either! It's...

I only looked briefly at your photo and may have jumped to conclusions too quickly. I'm sure Piers is much more experienced than I am. I think we are all agreed that it is some from of 6-spot and that this is not an illicit affair!

Mike

EricY wrote:Found this 6 spot Burnet moth on the NWT reserve, but what is it mating with?

Don't worry - nothing illicit! It's the female flava form of 6-spot burnet. See http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?id=5435 for another photo.

Mike

Hello Barry,

I'm pleased we seem to have solved your mystery. If you stick around on this site, you will soon become a butterfly enthusiast!

Mike

I must admit my suggestion was a bit 'tongue in cheek' - now, if we could find a tame helicopter pilot plus all the watchers....

Mike

That's a lovely photo, celery, and nice to see that blue sky and wild flowers don't only exist in Switzerland. I was at Aston Rowant on Monday afternoon (see post in Aug 2011 thread) and the slope was buzzing with S-s Skippers until at least 6pm. I think they like the slope to be well-heated before ...

Small Coppers are very variable in appearance. Emmet/Heath quote a wingspan range of 26 - 36 mm, which is a considerable range. I guess it depends on food availability at the caterpillar stage. Your first photo is an example of the aberration caeruleopunctata - you can see that there are small blue ...

In the July 2011 thread, David M wrote " The more I think about it the more I believe that 40" [species in one day] "is possible (though you'd have to get lucky with things like Clouded Yellow and late Purple Emperors) ." That set me thinking: if you included all life stages, the...

One question is: did you use the optical viewfinder on the A80? If so, you'll find very few modern equivalents and would probably have to go up to the Canon G12 for similar capability. I faced the same dilemma when my A630 died but eventually decided I could live with a large LCD and bought a Panaso...

I started August with a walk on the Chiltern edge above the Oxfordshire plain. Watlington Hill proved to be rather poor for butterflies but I did see a rather faded late Dark-green Fritillary - I thought I had missed them this year. A few Silver-spotted Skippers took a lot of finding as they zipped ...

I have noticed that several brown butterflies show a metallic sheen in certain lights. Yours is a fairly dramatic example on a very fresh BA!

Mike

You could try using fill-in flash. I expect it is quite sophisticated on the Canon and you should be able to vary the amount of flash to get a 'natural' look. It will need practice, though!

Mike

I'm pretty well stumped by this one, unless there are any butterfly farms or tropical houses nearby. If so, then a heliconid is a possibility - perhaps the Zebra longwing butterfly, Heliconius charithonia . There's a photo on Wikimedia - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Heliconius_charithonius....

That's a beautiful Jersey Tiger Moth! Never assume that moths are all dull brown things - there are plenty of gorgeous ones like this. A lovely photograph, too.

Mike

vestigially stumpy! - see below:
She's definitely leggier!

Mike

ChrisC wrote: let me just check what Nymphalidae means

It's even stranger with the Duke of Burgundy - the female has 6 legs and male only 4! Remember all those jokes about why women have long legs....

Mike

I'm sure that Matsukaze has got it right. Those are nice photos and, if you have got the 'bug', you should get a field guide to find your way around. There's a good list under the 'Resources' tab on the Home Page of this website - I like the Richard Lewington guide, as an easily-pocketable reliable ...

Think 'Rugby jersey' and you have a Cinnabar caterpillar! There are several different Ragworts and I think this is one of them.

Mike

The open wing shots were less successful I had a look at the EXIF data on your photos and notice that you had set 'normal' program with an ISO speed of 80. This resulted in a rather low shutter speed of 1/160s, which is insufficient to freeze wing movement. The light was probably fairly dull at the...

i wonder what the chances are of the dark shape, top right hand corner , being a red kite. Very high, I should think! There are often about 15 of them hanging around over the M40 cutting! The local press recently latched on to a story about Red Kites stealing lunch boxes from kids in a school playg...