Large Skipper - Favourite Photo of 2023

[Wurzel]

Large Skipper - Favourite Photo of 2023

Week 9

I seem to be two weeks ahead of schedule this year…the intro for this species in 2022 was wishing everyone a Merry Christmas/Seasons Greetings! Still not long to go until 2024 and the new season now…In the meantime let’s push on with the 2023 Faves. And as I'm ahead of schedule I may as well continue - hence posting this early afternoon

Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos as then it will be easier to keep track of things? Of course our overseas members are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants. As in previous years details of locations, dates, times and circumstances would be welcome as would any accompanying stories and anecdotes or other observations of behaviour and interesting other points.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Wurzel]

Large Skipper

This was taken at Middle Street on the first of June. I was wandering along one of the little trackways that criss-cross Dip1 when a golden blur took off from one of the buttercups at the edge of the track. I waited for a bit and lucky enough it came back and continued feeding up on the same flower. It was my favourite shot as I can’t work out was watching who?

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David Lazarus]

Several Large Skippers at Hatfield Forest, with both female:

Large Skipper f 18/07/2023 Hatfield Forest, Essex

Large Skipper f 18/07/2023 Hatfield Forest, Essex

and male on show:

Large Skipper m 18/07/2023 Hatfield Forest, Essex

[bugboy]

I don't recall seeing too many this year, didn't seem as abundant as usual. Perhaps a victim of last years heatwave which was at its peak when this years butterflies were half grown larvae. One of the ones that did make it through was this fine female, freshly emerged nearly halfway through July!

[IAC]

Female Large Skips are worth chasing. Like little flaming arrows. They can be spotted a good distance off in green grass. We have been lucky across the southern Scottish Borders with a good numbers most years. They have been slow to show further north but are getting there.

[Neil Freeman]

A poor year for Large Skippers around my local patch. The main emergence was a good couple of weeks later than usual and numbers thoughout their flight period were well down on the past few years.

Large Skipper male - Langley Hall 23.06.2023

Large Skipper female - Langley Hall 23.06.2023

Cheers,

Neil.

[David M]

Don't tend to take many photos of this species. This female basking on a leaf at Fermyn Woods on 17th July was probably my favourite:

[overthepass]

Large Skippers seemed to be rather late and not particularly abundant in our area this season. The following are all from late June, starting with a rather confrontational one at an open space north of Epsom.

A male resting in the early evening at Bookham Common.

And the last one, from a local nature reserve in Surrey on the SW London fringes.

[millerd]

Large Skippers were more widespread than usual across my local patch, but numbers were around the same overall. This one was seen in a new area of the site on 9th June.

The biggest surprise was discovering a thriving elongated colony along the side of one of the streams across Staines Moor, where I counted between 15 and 20 individuals among the buttercups during the late afternoon of 15th June. Most were males trying to establish separate territories - but finding this nigh-on impossible because of the proximity of the next butterfly's patch. Here are two of them.

Just to balance this, here is a new female seen at Bookham on 20th June.

Dave