I felt uncomfortable taking photos of butterflies captured by predators, but I guess that’s how nature works and that we humans should just observe and not interfere. Many butterflies seem to fall prey to crab spiders that lurk in flowers head and wait for their victims. Some seem to be camouflaged ...

I'm happy to provide images as well. I'm just back in the UK so it will take a while to identify and sort the 5000 shots I took this year. In the meantime if anyone requests any UK or non-UK species on my website, just let me know.

I was lucky enough to get a visit from this beautiful hawkmoth in southern France this summer. It was a speculative photo, given that it was 11.00 pm and quite dark, but I was pleasantly surprised at the result using flash and an exposure of 1/250 sec. It came back a few days later but a bat swooped...

Here's an upperside of a female tree graying hipparchia statilinus courting.

I wouldn’t dream of disagreeing with anyone, but offer these thoughts: The erebia: The red upf band seems very circular for a Pyrenees brassy ringlet E. rondoui (which now seems to be treated a separate species to the Spanish brassy ringlet E. hispania ), whereas I would have expected it to extend f...

I was just setting up for what I thought was a shot of a female Bergers clouded yellow underside when I got this lucky snap as it opened its wings and helped me with the ID - a clouded yellow female of the form helice!

I was recently persuaded by a Dutch colleague to use the cheap tripod that I had had for a year and had steadfastly refused to use, for much the same reasons. I spend the summers in the south of France where the temperature is usually above 30 C (often above 35C) and travelling light is a big priori...

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I took this photo last week in the French Alps on the way back for a brief return trip to the UK. It struck me how the three male southern small whites ( pieris mannii ) were almost perfectly in line and keeping a respectful distance behind his majesty, the magnificent swallowtail, as they were all ...

Argiades and alcetas are both very attractive blues (OK, all blues are attractive, but the rarer ones somehow seem more so) and it would be very exciting if one made a return to the UK. It looks more likely that argiades would be the favourite as it reputedly occurred in Dorset in 1885 in Bloxworth...

I think the answer is yes. Here are the links to the pages on the Cockayne database (which you can access for other species http://www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-curation/projects/cockayne/) for Large Copper and Small Tortoiseshell. Click on “show all images” at the bottom of the pages to see all form...

Try Bison Hill at Whipsnade Downs. It has been specifically managed for Dukes with the scrub cut back and cowslips everywhere. Park in the car park (you can’t miss it) over the road to Whipsnade zoo but about 200m north (i.e. not the zoo car park) and take the main track north toward Dunstable Downs...

Martin Down is certainly worth a visit, not only for the butterflies, as it’s a beautiful unspoilt natural area and one of my favourite places in the UK. It seems to be best known as an adonis blue site, but there are also grizzled and dingy skippers and green hairstreak near the large man-made ridg...

Going through the butterfly photos of last summer (from Var, southern France), here are three photos of what may be hawkmoth larvae. My best guesses are below, but I would appreciate an expert opinion: 1717 spurge hawkmoth (hyles euphorbiae) 1731 narrow-bordered bee hawkmoth (hemaris tityus) 3207 wi...

I’ll be rash enough to stick my neck out until an authoritative opinion comes along. It’s very worn and the sun is behind it which actually helps the ID as both wing borders are visible. It doesn’t seem that the borders are wide enough for clouded yellow (colias crocea), so the choice is pale CY (C....

I would agree male spotted fritillary (melitaea didyma), almost 100%. There’s nothing else that looks even remotely similar in France. Very nice shot that shows up the white fringes. The males are a beautiful brick-red when fresh, and they can be exceptionally common and very variable, especially th...

The grizzled skipper: in addition to the pyrgus undersides being much better for ID purposes, the uppersides of fresh specimens can give a good clue – large grizzled ( P. alveus ) is (if I understand it correctly) generally dark grey-brown and olive ( P. serratulae ) is a deep dark brown, but it’s h...

1) I’ll preface any comment by saying that identifying pyrgus species is sometimes almost impossible, so anything is just a best guess, and this is a rather worn specimen which makes it much harder. The undersides often give the best clues, but the subjects don’t often oblige. I would tend to go for...

I would say it is almost certainly a titania’s fritillary (boloria titania), as they are not uncommon in the Alps at high altitudes. It looks very much like the subspecies cypris which, according to the learned books by Tolman & Lewington (1997) and Higgins & Riley (1970), occurs in the Alps...

Depth of field (f-number) seems to be a trade-off with shutter speed in macro photography. I have heard that 2/3 of the field depth (and there’s not much of it) is behind the focal point and 1/3 in front. So if you have a subject in a V-shape as they often are, would focussing on the thorax lose 2/3...