Nice pics Dave! Yes - this is a male and female. The male is the one at the bottom of the pic. During the courting ritual, the male "drums" his antennae on the wings of the female.
Sexing many vanessids (Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral, Comma, Peacock, Painted Lady etc.) is really difficult. In this case, I'm going on behaviour (the male "drumming" the wings of the female). There are subtle differences in appearance (the female having a larger abdomen, possibly rounder wings) but nothing conclusive.
I have began to notice over years what size the male and female are because in Small Tortoiseshell the male is slightly smaller as many butterflies, but ususally the female is duller in colour.
O.K. here is the only video of mine you will see for a while until my site is up and running. Here is the two tortoiseshells:
I try and get natural shots and videos. Since my camera takes good videos and I see somthing e.g. a caterpillar eating or mating or a butterfly sucking nectar or mud puddling, I get those shots and make a short video on it. It's better as it shows more than a photo could.
My website shows all aspects of butterflies and moths and I will show you when its ready. I have 5 videos so far on the site and hoping for more throughout the year.
I take the videos, take photos, get all the shots together and make a WMV video on whats currently going on e.g. pupating butterfly etc.. Most will be in the same layout as above, some will be slight different.