www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Glad you enjoyed your time in our Norfolk, you visited some of the prime spots that not everyone knows about. Eric

Nice photos there.

Regarding your Essex Skipper, thats a Yea.

celery wrote:believed none of them to be high brown

dark green fritillaries

I was enjoying this collection of photos and thought that the foreground Frit in this photo has a High Brown curve to the forewing. Perhaps some experts could have a closer look?
Mike

Mike, I'd be very pleased if this proved to be a high brown... but sadly I don't think it is. My fingers are crossed that an expert will tell me I'm wrong.

I have about another dozen shots of this individual if it would help to positively ID - unfortunately none of them show an underside.

On the day in question I saw lots and lots of fritillaries... and took around 200 photos... yet none show what, to my eyes, are indisputably high browns. Indeed the transact walker Tara spoke to said he believed all the large fritillaries on the wing at that time were dark greens.

I've been occupied, to a large degee, by other matters over the past few days - like trying to sell my house - but I did manage a couple of walks around my local patch over the weekend. On Saturday to the waterless part of the Grantham Canal near the village of Cropwell Bishop - which always has good numbers of the species commonest in Notts. And on Sunday, alongside the River Trent at Stoke Bardolph to the lagoons at Netherfield - a local birders hotspot and reputed home of essex skippers.

But first a small digression... anyone on here like cricket? Well... last night I showed a current international cricketer around my house in the hopes of a sale... I don't think anything will come of it as he was viewing a lot of properties... but, on the slim chance of a bid being forthcoming, I won't jinx it by telling you who it was... not yet at least

Back to the weekend trips.. which were great walks but quite uneventful in butterflying terms. I did track down the essex skippers - but at the 'wrong' location by the canal - though this isn't to say they're not at Netherfield... it was overcast and showers were never far away during the hour I spent there mid-afternoon.

I did see a fair few dragons and damsels at both locations... though I really don't have much of a clue when it comes to identifying the species. On to the pics...


small tortoiseshell at the Cropwell Bishop part of the dis-used Grantham Canal


small skipper at Netherfield lagoons


cinnabar moth larvae - very common at Netherfield


southern hawker?


er... dunno


banded demoiselle

As ever, there are more photos at my Flikr page - http://www.flickr.com/photos/16155010@N04/ - click on the sets with butterflies in the title if you don't want to wade through examples of my digital paintings.
cheers, celery

... apologies... rather tardy in posting... still in the process of selling my house...

So I'll skip straight past the weekend (Friday) 15/16/17th July - where the weather was unrelenting here in Notts... and I endured a frustrating 3 separate trips to Cloud Wood, near Castle Donnington in North Leicestershire. I found the colony of purple hairstreaks and spent an evening watching them dance, squabble and soar... high in the treetops - without ever coming to ground. Same thing the next evening (when a gap in the rain allowed some more evening sun) and again, early on the Sunday morning. Difficult to estimate numbers but I'd say at least 30 individuals at the peak on Friday evening... with often as many as 10 in the air at the same moment. No pics... ho hum...

Last weekend (Sat. 23rd July) I had a trip to Barnack Hills & Hills, followed by a quick trot around Bedford Purlieus.

Lots of chalkhill blues, a few small copper, tattered marbed whites, gatekeepers, ringlets, whites, meadow browns and a single common blue. I found the majority of the chalkhills to be well away from the road, through the gate deeper in the reserve, near the area fenced off for wildflowers' well-being.

Then on to Bedford Purlieus where two silver-washed fritillary greeted us in the car pull-in area. Large skipper, red admirals, ringlets, meadow browns and gatekeepers were the order of the day here - plus more silver-washed frits in the glade cleared along the main west-east ride.


male and female chalkhill blues at Barnack


another male chalkhill in much better condition - despite the blustery winds


a marbled white doing his best impression of a moth


silver-washed fritillary in the car park at Bedford Purlieus


red admiral guarding his territory amongst the bracken

cheers, celery

oops! forgot the habitat shots... so here they are... plus a bonus picture of a blimp seemingly grounded in a cornfield from Sunday's walk along the Grantham canal


Barnack Hills & Holes


Bedford Purlieus


Goodyear (for Spring butterflies) Blimp

Sunday 24th July - in the garden watching the gatekeepers, bees and hoverflies on the tansy.

Then a lunchtime walk along the Notts-Grantham canal from Gamston to Cotgrave and back. Nothing rarer than a peacock... but also large, small and green-veined whites, gatekeepers, ringlets, meadow browns, small tortoiseshell, speckled wood, common blue and red admiral.

In the evening I went for another walk along Bingham Linear Park in an attempt to catch the brown argus and common blues roosting up... but there was nothing doing... aside from seeing the odd white there was nowt to be seen... not even the sizzle off a sausage (as my dear old departed nan used to say).


female gatekeeper on lemon balm in my own (soon to be sold... fingers crossed) back garden


tansy seems to be the thing they want at the moment


peacock alongside the Grantham canal... the unusually lurid background is actually the sheet of duckweed/algae/blanket weed which coats the water all along this stretch..uggh!

cheers, celery

Aston Rowant - Saturday 30th July. Early afternoon.

Not a lot to add as the site has been well documented lately in the excellent and informative posts of millerd, nfreem, MikeOxon, David M, Lawts, EricY, essexbuzzard and Lee Hurrell (sorry if I missed anyone out)... so I'll skip straight to the pictures...


silver-spotted skipper pausing for a second atop a dainty harebell


unusual 'rear-end' view of a six-spot burnet moth showing the electric blue antennae


plenty of chalkhill blues to enjoy at this site


mating pair of brown argus - that silvery-coloured area just to left of the female is the motorway... VROOM!

cheers, celery

Bernwood Forest and Meadows - Saturday 30th July. Late afternoon.

Hoping to happen upon a lazy brown hairstreak... but no such luck. I did find the purple hairstreaks buzzing around the treetops... but I lack the patience for the proper 'stake-out' required to get the close-quarter snaps.


beautiful coloration on this (slightly fuzzy picture of a) female common blue


a tatty small-skipper clings to the last-remaining stick of long grass in the newly-shorn meadow


the darker blue evening sky peeps between the canopy to frame this basking comma

22 species in a day across the two sites... easily my best of the year... visiting, as I was, from my native North Midlands 'Wilderness'.

cheers, celery

Lovely pictures Celery - the SS Skipper and Brown Argus shots are stunners!

Cheers

Lee

There's a definite time-lag developing in this reportage... kinda like you used to get when you were abroad and searching for an English newspaper to see the football results, whilst summer-holidaying in Crete in the 1980s. Then you'd get upset because Rotherham had lost 2-1 at home to Mansfield Town and it would ruin your morning - despite the fact that in reality the game had been over for 72 hours and the manager and players had long-since drown their sorrows with a dozen pints of ale...

...anyway, I digress...

Saturday 6th August - Lindrick Common
Rather overcast with oddly cold showers of rain... I went in search of the reported colony of introduced Scotch Argus. I didn't see any... which is not to say they aren't there. It's quite a difficult site to get to grips with, winding (as it does) in and around and through the golf course. I also couldn't find a decent place to park - eventually having to walk for a quarter of a mile beside the busy A57 from the nearest lay-by.
*Any further information on where to park, and where to look, would bre gratefully received.


backlit green-veined white... an indication the 'slim pickin's' at the site


lots of speckled woods were quick to bask in a rare moment of sunshine


a lovely fresh small copper on a rain-splashed leaf

cheers, celery

Sunday 7th August - Saltfleetby (Rimac), North Lincolnshire coast.
I made two visits to this delightful site - either side of a fish and chip dinner, a game of crazy golf and a 99 on the seafront at Skegness. The weather was fine and sunny - with an occasionally stiff breeze - the kind you always get on the East coast (which, I suppose is why the sea, is chock-a-block with wind-tower-pylon things... I can't think what their proper name is at the minute).

A great walk amongst the dunes and marshes... then on the coastal footpath, where I was rewarded almost immediately with the site of the butterfly I had come to see... the humble Wall. This is only the fourth occasion, In recent times, I have seen a Wall - and the other three were in Devon and Dorset (twice). It seems such a calamity that this species has been pushed further and further towards the coast... surely it now merits some proper attention in terms of conservation?

Other species seen included plentiful common blues, brown argus, peacock, red admiral, gatekeepers, meadow browns, small white, small skippers, small coppers, a single ringlet... and lots of 'brown' (I dunno what species they are) dragonflies.


Saltfleetby (Rimac entrance) - dunes and marsh on the Lincolnshire coast


wall - endlessly flitting from flower to flower - captured (after much endeavour) in the instant before it closed its wings


meadow browns happy to share a flower head


small copper on seed pods


dragonfly...? (enlighten me )


common blue... common pose


one last wall... wings snapped shut

cheers, celery

Hi Celery,

You did better than me on a recent trip to the coast to see Walls! I saw them....and that's as far as I got
They are a lovely butterfly aren't they? Lovely pictures too.

I believe your dragonfly is a Common Darter, there's two pictured in my diary (from Bernwood Meadows) - although I'm not an expert and could very well be wrong.

Best wishes,

Lee

This is one of a few diaries I open quite regularly, both for interesting photos and interesting species (especially considering where you live).

Damn good bloody good damn good job

(I snapped Mr. Wall Brown today too, equally restless when nectaring.)

Hi folks,

These images are of Florida butterflies taken on occasional trips between 2010 and 2014. These were winter vacations - usually taken late November - after the summer rainy season with it's accompanying threat of hurricanes and extremely high humidity has passed. Luckily, in central and southern Florida winter temperatures are comfortable, sunshine is abundant and many of the butterflies fly year-round.

So far I've seen about 55 of the 100 plus species that Florida has. To see some of the others I'd need to travel further north or at a different time of year - there are also quite a few I've simply not yet happened upon. Anyone thinking of taking a trip might like to consider the huge variety of other wildlife Florida has to offer - hundreds of species of dragonflies, copious quantities of bees and wasps, lots of reptiles, many species of birds and one particularly famous mouse.

All the photos were taken in the wild with a simple bridge camera (FZ-38 or FZ-200 in later years), handheld and without flash. Many more to come - if I get my act together properly. Hope you like 'em and I'm happy to answer any questions. Cheers.

1. 2. 3. 4.
1. Monk Skipper - Asbolis capucinus - Mounts Botanical Garden, West Palm Beach, Florida - 15th November, 2014
2. Common Buckeye - Junonia coenia - Naples Botanical Garden, Naples, Florida - 17th November, 2013
3. Dainty Sulphur - Nathalis iole - Okeeheelee Park, West Palm Beach, Florida - 15th November, 2014
4. Cassius Blue - Leptotes cassius - Secret Woods Regional Park, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida - 15th November, 2013

That Common Buckeye's a real beauty.

Nice piccies.

I was flicking through your flickr and boy, do you have a big back catalogue of superb pictures. Might have to free up one evening to have a proper look through

I agree with David Celery - that Buckeye is an awesome butterfly

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Thanks all - it's nice to contributing again

Here's a few more while I'm still feeling with a vim...

5. 6. 7. 8.

5. Dorantes Longtail - Urbanus dorantes - Pine Island Ridge area at Tree Tops Regional Park, Davie, Florida - 17th November, 2014
6. Atala - Eumaeus atala - Okeeheelee Park, West Palm Beach, Florida - 15th November, 2014
7. Palamedes Swallowtail - Papilio palamedes - Highlands Hammock State Park, Sebring, Florida - 14th November, 2014
8. Queen - Danaus gilippus - Okeeheelee Park, West Palm Beach, Florida - 15th November, 2014