April 2015

[CJB]

Hi UK B'ers,

Broke my duck on Tuesday with Brimstone, Small Torts and Peacocks; 2105 up and running!

My quest is for Frits and hairstreaks this year.

Flutter on!

CJB

[Jack Harrison]

And broke my duck today 9th with a Common Tortoiseshell in Oban.

An the Black Guillemots now well into double figures on water (and sea wall) just by main roundabout when entering Oban.

Jack

[jasonbirder]

Up and running for 2015 now...
Lots of the Nymphalid hibernators about over the last few days...
Hoping for another good year in 2015!

[walpolec]

Just coming to the end of a gorgeous week in the Scillies. We have seen an unidentified white, several Speckled Woods, loads of Peacocks and a single Holly Blue. Today we spotted what we initially thought was a Speckled Wood, but when it settled it looked more like a Wall, but not quite how I remember them. Please could someone confirm what it is and perhaps explain the unusual appearance of one of the hind wings??

Many thanks
Chris

[David M]

It's a Speckled Wood all right, but it looks more like the darker version one finds further south on the continent.

[Jack Harrison]

Jasonbirder. Your photos are stunningly sharp. Camera , etc details please.

Jack

[MikeOxon]

Jasonbirder. Your photos are stunningly sharp. Camera , etc details please

Jack, you have no excuses - I looked at the EXIF data and the camera is an FZ150 - same as yours

I agree though, these are excellently processed and presented - some details of sharpening etc. in CS5 would be interesting.

Mike

[jasonbirder]

Just acquired an FZ150 on Ebay for the 2015 season...so just getting to grips with it...
JPG not RAW processed in Photoshop CS5
Cropped & resized, then Clipped the zero areas of the histogram off in IMG>adjustments>Levels and then just used the Sharpen tool with the default settings
Thanks for the kind words...i'm no photographer so its nice to get the odd one right...

[MikeOxon]

...i'm no photographer so its nice to get the odd one right...

on current showing, I disagree! It's especially hard at this time of year when the butterflies are so 'flighty'. Most of my recent shots are rubbish

[jasonbirder]

walpolec The Isle of Scilly Speckled Wood is a quite distinctive form with orange pale patches instead of the normal cream...
It's only found on the Scillies

[millerd]

walpolec The Isle of Scilly Speckled Wood is a quite distinctive form with orange pale patches instead of the normal cream...
It's only found on the Scillies

This is subspecies insula - there is a description and a few images on the relevant species page on UKB. It looks like an intermediate stage between our familiar Speckled Wood and the continental southern version.

Dave

[bugboy]

walpolec The Isle of Scilly Speckled Wood is a quite distinctive form with orange pale patches instead of the normal cream...
It's only found on the Scillies

This is subspecies insula - there is a description and a few images on the relevant species page on UKB. It looks like an intermediate stage between our familiar Speckled Wood and the continental southern version.

Dave

And to answer your other question walpolec, I don't think there's anything wrong with either hindwing, it's just that it's holding its forwings at different angles, concealing one hindwing.

[bugboy]

8 species seen today including my first Speckled Wood and GV white of the year.

[Charles Nicol]

have been looking for Tips for the last 3 days... not a sausage

plenty of Peacocks, Brimstones, not so many Small Tortoiseshells and a few Commas. No whites.

[Tony Moore]

I've just been up to Cannock Chase hoping for an early Green Hairstreak, but similarly pas de salami .

Tony M.

[NickMorgan]

We had our first Orange Tip of the season here yesterday and today a Red Admiral. It has been great seeing so many Small Tortoiseshells, Peacocks and Commas these last few days.

[bugboy]

No signs of Orange Tips here as yet, probably not a bad thing though since all the Garlic Mustard is only just in leaf, no sign of flower spikes erupting as yet.

[David M]

Although much of March was dry and sunny, temperatures were generally quite suppressed. It's only during this last week that things have warmed up, so it's not surprising that emergences have been a little tardy.

I think we can all be confident that OTs will be readily on the wing within the next seven days...if you can wait that long!

[Testudo Man]

Are those beech leaves that the adders are on? Just trying to get a sense of scale.

Hi, sorry that i didnt reply until now. No, i would think the leaves are from the Sweet Chestnut tree, which could just be one of our largest UK leaves. Here is an image i took recently, showing one of the baby Adders basking on a log, with part of an adult Slow Worm close by.

This photo is not cropped.

Some really good numbers of Commas and Peacocks seen these last few days, sighted a lovely male Orange Tip yesterday at work, and also a Small White.

A couple of Comma/Peacock pics, cheers Paul.............Location- Kent.

Peacock image is not cropped at all.

[jasonbirder]

Great pics...and must be unusual to catch Adder and Slow Worm in the same shot?