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Sussex Kipper wrote:Hi all,
Plenty of Peacock, Brimstone and Comma in my travels today, and my first 2 Small Whites of the year. This Comma (Highdown Gardens, West Sussex) was attacking everything that passed and sat on my head for a while.
Neil[attachment=1]P1070104_edited-2.jpg

...and it looks like ab. g-album...

Hi Felix,
Well spotted. Might shift this to 'First Aberration of the Year' thread
Neil

It would certainly be a worthy candidate Neil, Comma's are normally frustratingly consistant with the 'C' marking. Yours was a good spot! I hope that you're not going to be that lucky all year...

Felix.

Two peacocks in my garden today, the first butterflies I've seen this year. And loads of bees all over my flowering plum (a bullace type) tree and on the goat willow. ( petworth west sussex)

One Peacock in Morfa Nefyn at last, all the photos I took came out blurred, I took the zoom lens off and forgot to switch the conversion off.

One small tortoiseshell today! Not far from my house. It feels like the warmest day of this year here. Also seen lots of Hoverflies and bumble bees. Hope this keeps up. Unfortunately, I never managed to get a photo of the tortoiseshell

Comma 3 today at local nature reserve Middlesex.

NIce to see a number of forum members begining to emerge from hibernation too - I was begining to mis this!

I saw my first butterflies this past w/end - 2 Brimstones fluttered over the garden. That was all - but such a welcome when they appeared.

Here's to a successful 2009 - looking forward to seeing the photos too!

Mark

Seen in Hungerford, Berks, 17 March above bed in hotel room - I was there for a funeral.

Jack

Hi All , I am very happy to have photographed my first Butterflies of 2009...lots of Small Tortoiseshells around and as of yesterday some Peacocks....still no Commas though....a wee bit misty here in SE Scotland so cooler breeze from the sea....I think it is to become a whole lot cooler as of next week.

First for 2009 for me... Peacock in the garden today, lovely spring day here!

i saw this comma about 3pm yesterday.... i used one of the Underwater settings to take the pic Charles

I'm so jealous of all these sightings. The only butterflies I've seen so far this year are the ones I have just finished stitching!

Pauline

Hi Pauline nice stiches I like the Small Tortoiseshell one. Don't worry about not seeing anything yet, I have only seen one this year, a small tortoiseshell and I have flu so I can't go out and look for more yet, good time since weather got warmer.

Finally saw some butterflies in the North although it was only because we took our daughter to look at York University. On the grass bank as we walked though the main campus we saw 2 small whites, a comma, a small tortoiseshell and a Peacock. We also later saw a small tortoiseshell in the city centre!

Saw my first Peacock yesterday in the garden and another one, as well as two commas, today during a stroll here in South-Wales.

Went back to a place i visited yesterday in the hope of seeing Small Tortoiseshells on Catkin Tree...success

When i got home i could not get the pictures off the xd card... it said "0 bytes" ... but i managed to find a free photo-recovery tool called "Photo Recovery" ( http://www.snapfiles.com/get/mjmphotorecovery.html if you are interested ) which retrieved 99% of the pics

Charles

Blimey!! I was going to say how amazed I was to see a Comma yesterday, but it looks like I'm late to the party!! I was going to be amazed 'coz it's so early in the year, and also 'coz it's a Comma- 1st sightings are usually Peacocks or Torts. Anyway, this was in my parent's garden in Leeds:-
Ist shot on full zoom from inside:

Then creep-up a bit closer!

All these Small Tortoiseshell reports are encouraging. However, I saw definite signs of recovery with the summer emergence last year and of course the autumn one was even better, apparently reinforced by immigration.

But as I have said before, in 60+ years of butterflying, Small Torts have always fluctuated in abundance. The Sturmia bella parasite clearly isn't helping, but Small Torts have always suffered badly from parasiticism. It is surprising that Peacocks and Commas are not similarly affected by parasitic cycles of abundance. On the contrary, in those 60 years, I have seen a steady rise in numbers of Peacocks and Commas. I could never have imagined all those years ago that Commas might become as common as Tortoiseshells.

Short outing today in windy conditions. Just two Peacocks seen. They both disappeared over top of 20 metre high trees, rather unusual behaviour.

Jack

I love those Tort pics Charles. Really nice.

Today at home I had several Comma, 1 Red Admiral and 2 Peacock.
I also got a glimpse of my first white butterfly of the year. I think it was GV by the jiz but I couldn't be sure as it was moving away from me at speed.

Denise