The wall on the knapweed is a nice pic.

I was on Gilling Down today looking for brown hairstreak and didn't see a single one. But I saw literally dozens of clouded yellows plus several of the helice form that were so pale as to appear white when flying. http://upload4.postimage.org/813928/clouded.jpg http://upload4.postimage.org/813931/he...

I submitted a similar abberation to UKButterflies not long ago, identified as Schmidti or something, but this example is a full open wing shot and is much clearer. Good one David.

Here's a small heath. It's smaller than a meadow brown by a long way.

I went looking for second brood adonis blue today at Hazelbury and saw three very tatty individuals after nearly three hours searching. Was I early or late?
A reasonable number of chalkhills still there though.

The current high numbers of painted lady is a real treat for me and must be one of my favourites. The underside is as spectacular as the upper. And marbled white for the same reason. I haven't seen many of the rarer species so can't comment on them.

That's interesting. Can you tell me where approximately on Stoke Camp you saw them? I'll go down there again if I can be sure of seeing them.

I spent another three hours trawling Somerford Common for brown hairstreak, concentrating on coppice and the more open areas, but didn't see a single one. I met a guy who seemed to know a bit about butterflies and suggested I looked around the northern edge where there were hedgerows but there was n...

Can anyone give me any tips on how to differentiate 5 spot burnet from narrow bordered 5 spot burnet?
Thanks.

It's the underside of the antennae tips that you have to look for. It's difficult....
Here's one I took earlier:
http://upload4.postimage.org/660835/photo_hosting.html

This is a splendid site to take the family with stunning views over the Somerset Levels and the Severn Estuary beyond. But it is supposed to be a site for small blue, and sadly, today it wasn't. I did see common and holly blue, silver washed fritillary, brown argus (that I kept examining - is that a...

Somerford Common is supposed to be good for brown hairstreak and is about 45 minutes from Bath. I found a good selection of many other butterflies when I went there a month ago. Closer still are Morgan's Hill, Bannerdown and Hazelbury Common. Fontmell Down near Shaftsbury is, I'd estimate, about an ...

Are those sites within 100 miles from Bath? Bear in mind he's got to find them as well.

Check out the regular UK Butterflies info pages. But from my limited (and recent) experience, female chalkhills are brown with no blue scales like adonis/common, but like the adonis they have the dark bands going out into the white border which distinguishes them from brown argus.

And if you look closely there's a trace of a white roundel on the forewing inside the other two lines of spots. If she had pushed her forewings a little further foreward you'd see the black dot that a brown argus doesn't have.

Any news on the brown hairstreak, Mark?

Red admirals are plentiful too with many newly emerged adults. And talking of wanderers, my local Avon Wildlife Trust reserve at Willsbridge, which is a small suburban site with woodland and a few open patches, had a male silver washed fritillary feeding on its buddliea bush for the last three days,...

Further, a microdrive is often called Compact Flash type II. It has the same pin-outs as CF type I but is thicker, The Fuji has a slot that will take type I or II. My brother has a S7000 and uses a 1 gig Compact Flash card with no problems, but be sure that you slot it in the right way round.

Nice. I'll be interested to hear what you think of the Raynox.

I checked out Stoke Camp today, along with some of its surroundings but I saw no small blue at all. There were good numbers of chalkhill blue, a few common blue, one or two brown argus plus the usual hoards of gatekeeper and meadow brown. I also saw a single small copper and a single grayling. Oddly...