www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Mark Colvin wrote:Goodson and Read (1969), in their Aberrational and Subspecific Forms of British Lepidoptera, list at least 277 named aberrations of the Common Blue. ...........

Thanks, Mark. The key is that the name should be apicata-thetis. With that correction, Google comes up with a lot more info!

Gary's photo seems to tick all the boxes

Mike

How I'd love it if Piers were still active on this site.

He'd be in his element.

Sadly missed.

And here's an unusually blue female Common Blue I photographed at Mill Hill (Shoreham) on 24.5.15.

Fantastic image Neil.

David M wrote:How I'd love it if Piers were still active on this site.He'd be in his element.Sadly missed.

I was thinking that

Regards Gruditch

Here`s one from today, would you say it is very blue like some of the others, it`s not a good shot and it`s straight out of the camera, no pp.

straight out of camera. female common blue, by poacher rtd, on Flickr

These two were seen in close proximity to each other today on my local patch near to Heathrow. Both were very blue, and the comparison in colour of the two looks about right with the first a deeper shade than the second both in flight and settled. There seem to be a lot of blue females this year so far. Dave

Also in Somerset...one similar to these at Kilmersdon cutting today.

A blue female yesterday afternoon at one of my local spots near Solihull, photo taken in almost exactly the same spot as the one from last year that I posted earlier in this thread,
Cheers,

Neil.

There does seem to be a preponderance of 'blue' females this year. Is there a reason for this or is it just that we are concentrating ourselves more than we would normally on this phenomenon?