I've always had stacks of butterflies at high altitude in the/Austrian Swiss Alps end of August. Some species are getting a bit past their best but still plenty of fresh ones. The higher you go the fresher they are this time of year. I have been to Saas Fee and Zermatt a few times this time of year....

Yes definitely butterflies on poo aren't the best looking photos.

On a fishing trip in congo once I found some species quite partial to urine which is a bit better. Not soaking my hands in it tho!

Thanks. Good advice. Patience is definitely a virtue with active butterflies that's for sure.

The places I have in mind both have good horse traffic I believe and was thinking maybe there'l be plenty of attractants already present.

Fingers crossed for a bit of decent weather in a week or two!

Remembered to vote this month! :) Think this is the best set of images for some time this month. some real stunners! Good to see that maybe last months discussions have hopefully encouraged a few people to vote for all images and there's even an instruction on how to vote now. I did eventually find ...

Very nice indeed :) I also tried macro with a 5D2. Didn't matter too much having the shorter working distance. If you can get close enough to fill the frame with a 1.6x crop it's not much more effor to get a bit closer and fill a full frame. The big issue I had was the big loss in depth of field com...

I think the males and females can both vary in size by quite a bit. If you see blues roosted up together early or late in the day this can be quite clear. The males at Iping do seem to have a bigger size range than the females that's for sure, and there seem to be more smaller males ones in the last...

Ok, the time has finally come now I'm in Hampshire to properly go looking for these things and see what all the fuss is about :) Just wondering if bait is essential for seeing these close, and if so, what do people recommend? I unfortunately can't stretch to a trip to Ghana for any of Neil's Shitto....

Very odd... definitely some kind of issue when pumping up the wings... or do they pump them up one at a time and they just haven't finished yet? Might explain why they were all fine today... Good to hear there's plenty of fresh ones emerging. I might get another crack at the ants :) Had one go, but ...

I have heard reports of them feeding on Plantain in Kent so quite likeloy they could use the same food plant there if it's present. I was thinking that I would never see a Heath Fritillary this year now I've moved to Hampshire, but I might be in with a shout yet! :) Were the Heath Fritillaries in am...

I've visited Iping and Steadham commons quite a few times since end of May and can't say I've noticed anything untoward with the butterflies there. There are some small ones, but nothing more than normal variation in size I'd say. If there were lots of deformed butterflies there Monday, perhaps some...

Hi FISHiEE, I was about 300-400 yards west of the car park, on the main track, between about 1.30pm and 3. There were plenty of SSB's within quite a small area so I didn't bother walking around much! I did briefly chat to two other photographers, one with a tripod, I don't know if that was you? Ah ...

I think there comes a point when the butterflies get either hot enough, or too hot, and so don't have a need to open their wings to take in even more heat. Being able to close their wings gives them much greater camouflage than wings opened. I too noticed all of the Silver Studded Blues at Iping com...

I'd say common blue from the lack of any black markings on the wing edges... but then that could be part of the abberation I guess!

Pretty impressive whatever they are though!

Also, one thing that came up today... where are the instructions telling people how to vote? I was speaking with someone earlier today who didn't realise you could vote on images. I was going to show them the instructions on how to vote but couldn't find any. I found the instructions on how to uploa...

Ah well, I gave it my best :lol: It's fair to say you guys have done an excellent job to provide what we have up to now, and it can't be that bad or nobody would be taking part. Have to say things looked a bit dodgy with very low entries for the set subjects over the winter, but thankfully things lo...

They're only getting less votes because not everyone is voting the same way. That's the whole point. The average eradicates that problem(I'm not going to explain it again), as would somehow making everyone vote in the same way. I will have to stop soon as I'm getting too much brick dust in my eyes n...

That's exactly my point. They are the ones that have lost out by some people not voting on all the images.

It's all very fascinating stuff, and a real educational experience for me and many others too I suspect. If it is, as believed, a temperature related issue, then if the conditions are 'normal' for the second brood on this site, we can expect there to be no aberrations in the 2nd brood. But some abbe...

It would make no sense for the highest average rate to win. If A is considered to be worth a rate by 20 people, yet B is only considered to be worth a rate by 10, is it fair that B could win because it had a higher average rate. :? If A is the better image, and got the 20 rates it's therefore going...

Could the exceptional heat in April have had an effect during the development stage on those in ant hills more exposed to the sun/heat and those more sheltered that didn't get so hot developed normally. And those same 'hot' individuals also had trouble emerging, due again to the heat/dryness where t...