Guy,

Are you suggesting that Jack is "Meleagering"?

I have had the same experience with Sigma as Rogerdodge. I had a 105mm macro that needed to be reprogrammed when I got a Canon 20D and they did it for £5 even though I didn’t have the purchase receipt (when it should have been £30). In August my Sigma 150mm macro locked up when I was back in the UK ...

I’ve just completed the update of my website with 300 photos taken this year, should anyone be interested. Although the site is called Butterflies of France, I’ve come to think of butterflies in terms of their natural distribution, rather than on a country basis. However, every species that occurs i...

I was asking the same question: http://www.butterfliesoffrance.com/html/thecla%20betulae.htm A female? I've always rather assumed that only males took salts. Maybe females come down to take moisture, as I have seen seen what looked like a female Purple Emperor do this (I'm posting this on my site in...

A few years ago I received an email from a Professor Gunnar Björk of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, on this subject. He was researching the blue colouring caused by the diffraction of white light in the regular microstructure that covers the wings of an example blue - Meleager...

I haven’t been there for a few years, but Powerstock Common is a terrific place. Especially good for Wood White and Marsh Fritillary. It is quite a large reserve, with clearly defined paths, but the best place is (or was) the cutting of the disused railway line. My notebook of records, including thi...

I’d like to echo what Guy has said. It’s hard to imagine that July and August is not a good time to go butterflying to the Mediterranean region of France (and I guess elsewhere), but it isn't. Everything gets baked by the heat from about the third week in June and butterflies only return in Septembe...

Curiously, I have a photo almost identical to this, with my commentary below, almost echoing the views expressed here: http://www.butterfliesoffrance.com/html/pyrgus_generic.htm#5823_female_Var_26May07_-_onopordi_ I would be fairly confident (I use the term very loosely when referring to pyrgus) tha...

I wouldn’t want to put anyone off Naturetrek, especially as they are supportive of BC, but £1000+ per person per week is a big outlay and the leaders are sometimes/often bird experts and not principally butterfly experts. Sometimes their tour synopses seem to have a very strong bird and flower empha...

As it's almost identical to the photo above, I'd go for Provencal! The fw marginal lunule in s3 is larger than it's neighbours, but in Knapweed it is distinctly larger than the others. This isn't, so I'm fairly sure it's not Knapweed. There are other indicators such as the colour variation between b...

Tolman’s Collins book is, in my opinion, only a great book because of Richard Lewington’s superb illustrations. Much of the text is a straight lift from Higgins & Riley (1970) and Tolman has abbreviated much of the excellent detail in H&R and there are errors in a few of the distribution map...

I’ll also add a link – can you drop me an email with the link address you want me to use, please. Regarding darwiniana , it illustrates one of the aspects of butterflying that I find intriguing: there are specimens that us humans cannot identify for certain, with all the experience, information and ...

Hi Juha, This certainly is a big project! Some of the photos didn’t enlarge for me when I clicked them, but maybe I hadn’t enabled something. I note your coenonympha darwiniana from Bernard Fransen states “ID uncertain”. I’ve struggled with this species and put some of this year’s photos up on this ...

I wouldn’t be into organising a trip on commercial lines (and I have been contacted by a one or two companies about this) but if a small group of say two or three wanted to come down to Var in e.g. late May I would be happy to show you around three of four sites that have exceptional butterfly diver...

For me, the colour of the red marks is constant and definitive even when the other clues may be inconclusive. I credit Tim for realising this. I’ve added two photos (11003 and 11072) from June this year which I think show this clearly. satyrium ilicis_11003.JPG satyrium esculi_11072.JPG I agree with...

I've seen them in the Pyrenees where they seem to be the predominant form, if not the only form. I think they are the subspecies spodia form pacula.

I just like photographing butterflies and usually avoid such debates, but here’s my two-pennyworth. I try to photograph the butterfly to capture its intrinsic beauty. If I do some post-production, it’s only to recapture what I saw through the viewfinder. I try to include the flower or plant it is on...

It was easy to agree on 5620 and 5644 – these aren’t pyrgus! 5932 looks to me to have an alveus wing shape, or at least a wing shape that I have come to associate with it. I’ve attached the page from T&L that shows centralhispaniae and armoricanus together. The strength of the markings looks too...

Pyrgus ID is so difficult I always try to get an underside shot, because the upperside alone is frequently not convincing enough. I think, of the “tricky” pyrgus, which for me includes alveus, armoricanus, serratulae, onopordi, carlinae and cirsii, only cirsii can be identified with confidence from ...

Pyrgus. I’m a big fan of this group but my wife’s eyes start to glaze over at the mere mention of the word. Altitude information is always useful as it may help to eliminate some species that have specific altitude requirements. Lac d’Estaing looks to be around 1200m. This is about the lower end of ...