hi jason,

it looks like a lime hawk moth caterpiller to me.

gary

hi felix,

ive got an image i took last week of a female common blue, in a meadow a short walk from my home, its got one elongated spot on the hindwing, does it make aberration status?

gary

hi guy, it appears to be one of the helleborine clan, maybe broad-leaved going by stem and leaf arangement, not sure what your local species would be, as you would no doubt have a greater range where you are, but seems to have been infected with a virus in its early development producing a plant wit...

thanks guy,

oh dear felix, it only gets worse as the years go by, take my word for it.

cheers gary.

hi felix,

is there a specific name for the common blue aberration without the cell spot?

gary

hi bill,

to further illustrate the confusion with lacking cell spots heres a pic of a female common blue i took today that i had to look twice at.

gary

hi zonda,

your skippers right but the blue is a small not a holly

gary

hi felix,

in my own experience i have found over the last decade in the hot the summers we've had, on more than one occasion, male dark greens several miles from the nearest colonys in the forest, in gardens in the middle of my home town new milton, so they definately do get up and travel.

gary

hi guy and felix, firstly guy i must commend you on your diligent obsevations, they have been a real insite to follow, even though it looks like a poor outcome for the emperors. felix how would you speculate what possible benefits in evolutionary terms the high brown frits have in not being as inces...

wow!

gary

ah yes, i did speak to one of the people who had seen it fly away and they said they had seen a flash of some purple, so you may well be right . whilst i was veiwing it it only briefly flicked its wings once when a camera got alittle close and it being in the total shade, had shown no sign of purple...

hi bill, had i thought to i would have asked your name! i was the one with the straw hat that found the emperor in the car park, it was good to meet you! :D unfortunately i like you had thought that it would not move on its own and as there was enough people watching over it left for a walk down the...

hi vic,
red sword-grass.

gary.

yep!

certainly is a numbers game.

gary.

bare up lee!,

just remember everything has its place in the order of things!

gary.

hi guy, the bug in your picture looks like the final instar nymph of pentatoma rufipes, the forest bug, which is noted for attacking other insects. another picromerus bidens, which is noted for targeting butterfly and moth larvae and pupa, i posted a pic of last year sucking dry a small copper cater...

hi guy,

looks similar to the one i posted on the site a couple of days ago, which i found down here on the hampshire coast,
felix very kindly gave me the aberration name "flavotesselata" which id assume maybe a temperature driven individual as well.

find attached

gary

beautiful day down here in the forest,

but only one male brimstone seen again, this time in lymington.
nice illustrative use of your images guy! still waiting to see my first comma.

gary.

no butterflies today,
as i only made a fleeting visit to a pond in the forest to check on the local toad population.
things were jumping! many hundreds of things!

gary

congrats to roger, vince and guy!

i have to agree with nick that the comma of guys was my first choice and an extraordinary capture of behavior, well done!.

congrats also to all who entered, as usual there was some good stuff on show this month!

gary.