www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Congratulations on the Essex and a great shot of it too. I like it

Looks like you had a good trip with plenty of photo opportunities. I love the grey seal!

It is always great when a visitor comes to the garden. Like yourself I have had Hollly Blues visiting for a few weeks now but have failed to get shots as good as yours.

Cracking set of shots Callum That looks like a useful trick for this year, I might take a water pistol out with me, spray a few leaves and wait for the butterflies to come to me

Have a goodun

Wurzel

CallumMac wrote:I love Holly Blues, and I don't think I've ever seen as many in one year as I have this summer.

Me too, Callum. Just like Brimstones, they're relatively common but they can't be totally relied upon so when one settles in a convenient spot, then it's your absolute duty to pay attention!

Thanks all. It seems that the butterflies have been taking the advice in your signature, Old Wolf, and staying hydrated!

24/07/2018 - Fenns and Whixall Moss

Fieldwork this week has taken me and a field assistant to the Welsh borders, and today specifically to Fenns Moss. This may be familiar to you as a good site for Large Heath, and also for White-faced Darter - though both species are now over for the year.

The weather was not sunny, but it was very warm and muggy, so a surprising number of butterflies and dragonflies were active. It took us mere minutes to find the Speckled Woods we needed - a stark contrast to last week's efforts in East Yorks! With rain in the air, we decided to save our next site for tomorrow and spend some time exploring this huge and diverse reserve.

The first butterfly on the list, to my delight, was a Small Copper - always a treat!
There were good numbers of Common Blues on the wing, though they were mostly not as fresh as those seen in Yorks at the weekend. Could there be a third generation coming down south - or will the drought conditions put paid to that?
Given the earliness of the year, we were extremely surprised to see a very fresh Large Skipper! I'm not aware of any circumstance under which this species has a second brood, so presumably this was just an extreme straggler.
And, talking of extremely fresh surprises...
Besides the butterflies, there were some nice odonates around, including Black Darter and Emerald Damselfly; and large numbers of immature toads, perhaps leaving the water in response to the first rainfall in a while.

That is a late Large Skipper Callum, and not in too bad nick either Cracking shot of the Emerald Damsel

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Cheers Wurzel!

25/07/2018 - Llanymynech Rocks

Fieldwork took us slightly further down the border to Llanymynech yesterday - another burning hot day. Starting our search in the lower quarry, we were slightly surprised to come across a Silver-washed Fritillary. The literature for this site (including on UKB!) lists several fritillary species but not this one. Nevertheless we quickly saw several more, with a peak count of 5 individuals in sight at the same time!
Lots of the 'commoners' were around too, including a Pyrausta purpuralis.
However, Speckled Woods were in fairly short supply, so we decided to walk up through the golf course towards the top meadow. We were met there by an absolute bonanza of colour, with dozens of SWFs, plus lots of very fresh Peacocks and Painted Ladies.
This might sound strange, but I've never really looked hard at the underside of a Painted Lady before. But it has to have one of the best undersides!
It was lunchtime, so we headed back down to the car park. While eating, we thought we saw a couple of things that might have been White-letter Hairstreaks, but with no close views and a few Holly Blues also present, we couldn't be certain.

With Speckled Wood surveys complete shortly after lunch and plenty of time to kill, we decided to walk up into the top quarry. We knew that Grayling records are very occasional here but we figured our best chances were in this area. Splitting up, we both independently glimpsed something that we were pretty sure was a Grayling - it flew off too quickly for certainty. I wasn't disappointed for long, because I can always be distracted with a nice Small Copper!
Leaving the top quarry, Rob mused that the steep slopes to the west looked like similar habitat to the Grayling sites he'd visited in Lincs. We decided to search this area a bit more closely - I moved up the slope in zig-zags whilst Rob watched from the bottom. As I neared the top (and exhaustion!) something exploded up from in front of me, flying down the slope and landing halfway between us. In the binoculars - a Grayling! It wasn't interested in hanging around, so no photo, but the reserve manager was very pleased to get the records.

By this point we were both suffering in the heat, so we headed back to the car and off in search of ice-cream, pausing only for a brief shot here and there. There's been much discussion on this site of tiny Common Blues in this summer generation, and I was reminded of that chat by this mini female!
The non-Lep highlight was this nice dragonfly - I think a female Common Darter.
Returning to the youth hostel, I went for a brief stroll in the late evening sun, and watched the Common Blues settling in to roost.

Cracking Silver-washed Callum But the star of the show really should go to that Small Copper, I'm used to seeing the chocolate ground colour contrasting to the orange but that one is almost black and orange

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Wurzel wrote:that Small Copper, I'm used to seeing the chocolate ground colour contrasting to the orange but that one is almost black and orange

It was a noticeably dark individual, Wurzel, especially when compared to a 'normal' one I saw a few minutes later. I was particularly intrigued by the black streak across the unh which you can see in my second photo - to me this suggests the dark colouration is a heat-shock aberration.

CallumMac wrote:

Wurzel wrote:that Small Copper, I'm used to seeing the chocolate ground colour contrasting to the orange but that one is almost black and orange

It was a noticeably dark individual, Wurzel, especially when compared to a 'normal' one I saw a few minutes later. I was particularly intrigued by the black streak across the unh which you can see in my second photo - to me this suggests the dark colouration is a heat-shock aberration.

That is a particularly nice Small Copper but I think that black streak is nothing more than a tear in the wing, allowing the upperside of the opposite wing to show through.

Interesting reports from your travels Callum and illustrated with some great photos. I particularly like the Painted Lady undersides

Cheers,

Neil

Thanks Paul - looking at another angle of that Small Copper you are spot on!
It's cold and rainy here today - which is a very welcome break after the last couple of unrelenting months! It also gives me a chance to share these photos I took back at the start of the month, of Dark Bordered Beauty. We had agreed this year not to promote sightings on social media until after the flight season had finished, to keep visitors - and the associated trampling - to a minimum on what is a well-known and publicly accessible site. The flight season does now seem to be over, but it's been a record year for these moths at their last English colony - good news!
Finally, I was wondering what software (preferably free software!) people use to process RAW files? I am seriously considering making the switch from shooting in JPEG to RAW...!

CallumMac wrote:Finally, I was wondering what software (preferably free software!) people use to process RAW files? I am seriously considering making the switch from shooting in JPEG to RAW...!

I use Photoscape X. It does both Jpeg and RAW and seems very intuitive and able to make very subtle edits to images. I find it very easy to use which coming from someone who's not particularly computer savvy must be good!

30/07/2018 - Creag Dhubh

We're based in Aviemore this week for fieldwork. A long drive up today, but we were spurred to keep pressing on by the prospect of a stop at Creag Dhubh just before arrival, in the hope of finding a late-straggling Northern Brown Argus.

It was 16.30 before we arrived at the layby, but sunny. We walked up the hillside to the foot of the cliff without seeing anything flying (of any species!). Perhaps we were too late? It has been hot, after all. We were just about to start walking back down to the car when something fluttered up from under my field assistant Rob's feet. A slightly tatty, but still lovely, NBA! With the evening cooling down and clouds periodically covering the sun, it was quite confiding and gave us both the chance for close-ups from all angles.
A good start to this trip. We really should find Scotch Argus on this trip as well - fingers crossed!

Cracking NBA Callum, not hard to ID that one

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Your 'devant jour' photo of the Dark Bordered Beauty is particularly lovely, Callum.

Thanks Wurzel Makes up for the confusion around the East Yorks hybrids a month earlier!
Thanks Janet They are lovely little moths. It's a real shame we didn't feel the site was healthy enough to publicise them this year, but maybe in future - the signs are promising.

31/07/2018 - Dava Way nr Dunphail

Tuesday saw us searching a variety of Speckled Wood-ish places in the area between the Spey and the Moray coast; most notably along the Dava Way, a long distance footpath over the moors between Forres and Grantown-on-Spey. The nice thing about searching for Speckled Woods in this part of the world and at this time of year is that the same areas of habitat are also hoaching with Scotch Arguses!
Incidentally, I made my first steps into shooting in RAW this week, setting my camera to "RAW + L" for the first time. I was very glad I did. These two above are edited from the RAW versions of photos I originally thought (when sorting the JPEGs) to be overexposed; but that turned out not to be the case when I looked into the RAW files. I think my camera's auto white-balance mode might not be brilliant when faced with a dark butterfly on a bright day. I had similar issues when photographing Mountain Ringlets a couple of months back, which makes me wonder what might have been... I guess I'll just have to go back next year for them!

The garden of the youth hostel in Aviemore had a nice bonus that evening, though there wasn't enough light for taking really nice photos:
Back in York now, and planning our trip to Oban next week, when no doubt I'll be taking lots more Scotch Argus photos!

Hello Callum.

Great shots especially the Painted Lady undersides . I have always loved the wing undersides of this butterfly.

Fantastic to see the Scotch Argus Callum A species that I won't be seeing for a good while yet

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Great shots of the SA Callum, the Small Copper caught my eye though, I've been on holiday in Kent and not seen one and all year I've looked for them here in the North without success , so it was great to see yours Goldie

Thanks all! Goldie, I've been quite lucky with Small Coppers this year. Always lovely to see them. On which note...

05/08/2018 - pootling about East Yorks

My partner had a couple of childhood friends visiting this weekend. I agreed to taxi duty whilst they did girlie things in the knowledge that I could drop them off and spend some time exploring a few different sites to usual, in the Hull area, while I waited!

The first such site was the car-park of the Beech Tree pub in the suburban 'village' of Willerby (officially this is separate to the city of Hull, but I challenge anybody to look at a satellite photo and tell me where Willerby ends and Hull begins!). This is apparently a good spot for White-letter Hairstreaks, and reports are still dribbling in of these from various parts of Yorkshire. But the bramble beneath the elm was all over, so I wasn't optimistic. I gave it half an hour, during which time several Holly Blues flew by without stopping, but no luck.

With all of the Holly Blues about, I decided to move a mile up the road to Wood Lane - a site I have visited several times to sample Speckled Woods, and have often seen HBs close up as they nectared on brambles by the path. Worth a try...

I knew I didn't have long to spend here, but I was only about 100m down the lane when I saw the first HB. It initially seemed to be playing peek-a-boo...
...but soon came around the flower to drink.
In total I counted 6 HB flying together along a 30m patch of brambles - by far the highest density I've ever seen. They were joined by good numbers of Specklies, my sampling evidently not having dented the population! (phew... )
I got the call to pick L up and started heading back to the car, pausing to snap one more HB as it posed on Ivy.
Having seen L's friends back up the road and cooled down with an ice-cream, I suggested we pop into Kiplingcotes for a stroll on our way home. I'd not been for about a month as the Marbled Whites would be long gone, but I'd had a tip-off from millerd that he'd recently seen Wall Brown here! Worth a try...

There was a tatty, but still nice, Comma on the path down to the reserve which posed nicely.
Lots of Common Blues were flying, many of them pretty fresh - we're borderline here whether this species is univoltine or bivoltine in any given year, but this is clearly a second generation.
Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers are starting to look a little bit tatty, but every one gave me a momentary buzz before I found it was another not-a-Wall!
We spent quite a while searching the sheltered corner where millerd had seen his Walls, but with no luck. Well, not no luck - there was a lovely Small Copper!
Just as we were about to give up, I walked to the meadow above the pit and looked back down the bank into it - to see not one but two Wall Browns flying, totally inaccessibly, near the top of the steep slope! Thus ensued about 20 minutes of scrambling, slipping, and near misses, during which I put horrendous grass stains down my best 'smart' shorts! Nothing better than record shots to show for it...
...but my conservative estimate was that I saw at least 7 Wall Browns - perhaps the population here is a bit healthier than I gave it credit for.