www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Hi Nick.

A beautiful and well deserved image. They don't come fresher than that ...

Great work

Kindest regards. Mark

Thank you Mike and Mark for your kind comments, it certainly was worth the wait.

Mike i hope you get lucky.

All the best, Nick.

July 20th

Sat. morning i decided to visit my local patch to see the PE one last time, where i bumped into Susie who was also hoping to see and photograph the same butterfly. By 9.15am i had found one, eleven days after photographing my first PE of the season i was about to get my last photo. Letting Susie take all the photos she wanted first, i then took a couple of record shots to add to my memories of a great season i have had with this butterfly in these woods this year.

I have just seen the wonderful Emperor photo on the previous page of your diary. What a magnificent creature - congratulations on capturing its beauty for us all.

Dave

Beautiful photo , Nick. Thank you again for your kindness.

Thank you for your kind comments Dave and Susie, greatly appreciated. Its been a very long wait in capturing this particular shot of a PE, but one i will never forget.

Susie, it was a pleasure.

All the best, Nick.

July 20th continued.

After Susie had left to go home, i had a quick look around before heading home myself, so i could look after my sons eight week old puppy. I did`nt feel it right to leave her all alone for too long as we had just got her a couple of days earlier, and the rest of the family were out. The first butterfly i came across was this Comma which was to high to photograph, so out came my newly acquired stilts, and i still was`nt high enough, and could`nt get over the top of the butterfly to achieve the shot i required, [will have to get some extensions] As i got closer to the car i thought i would try and get some photos of something closer to the ground [forget the stilts] and, chose these female Small Skippers as my last subjects before getting into the car and, heading home for a spot of puppy sittting.

Stilts or no stilts they're still great shots Nick Do you have knee pads for the low shots?

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Thank you for your kind comment Wurzel. As for the knee-pads, i was on full tip-toes for the lower shots.

All the best,Nick.

At lunch breaks from work i usually take a walk, taking the same route pass a common, then down onto the Downs Link, across a play area which leads to the road where i live. Most of the butterflies i encounter at this time of year, [or at least this year] are Small Tortoiseshell, Comma, Small and Large Whites plus Meadow Browns, the odd gatekeeper, Green-veined White, Speckled Wood, Ringlet, Small and Large Skippers and, if i`m really lucky a Peacock and maybe a Red Admiral. On this particular day i saw a male Marbled White on the common, [which is a first for this area] just before i cut down onto the Downs Link, where there were a couple of Commas floating about, as there are nettles all along here, i stopped to watch the two Commas as i always do, nothing normally comes of this, but today was different. One of the Commas was a female and, she instantly flew down on to a nettle and oviposited, laying just the one egg before flying off, but, not on the edge of a nettle leaf which is the norm, but on, a cluster of female flowers hanging down from the Nettle stem, [right on the bottom one]. I have looked for a reference of this behaviour, laying eggs on the flowers of Nettles, and found none, so whether this is common practise or not i have no idea.

Hi Nick,

I've not see or heard of such behaviour. It's very odd indeed.
Could you add the close-up image to the Species-Specific Album please.

Regards,

Vince

Great observation Nick! Thx for reporting.

Cheers,

- Pete

Sat. July 27th.

On my way home from work at lunch time, taking the same route as always i watched another female Comma ovipositing, this time the egg being placed in the correct spot, on the edge of a Nettle leaf.

Excellent images of Comma eggs Nick.

I have seen a couple of female Commas ovipositing recently but too deep in beds of nettles to find any eggs.

Cheers,

Neil F.

Brill shot Nick - what lens do you use as when I try for eggs I just can't seem to get close enough?

Cheers as well as your shots saved me from great embarassment - I was watching a Comma flutter around from leaf to leaf, bending it's abdomen around so I thought it was ovipositing. I took some photos of something but when I compared them to your detailed shots I realised that they weren't eggs - probably just grains of dirt Got away with that cheers

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Thank you for your comments Neil, appreciated. I was very fortunate that both Commas i witnessed ovipositing were on the side of a path or track, the first one was on a mature Nettle right in the open just underneath a bridge, the second was on a small Nettle below some Bramble, right on the edge of the path, so both very easy to find. I hope you have better luck next time.

All the best, Nick.

Thank you for your comments Wurzel, appreciated. The lens i always use to photograph butterflies or their eggs is the same one, a sigma 150 macro. for the two eggs i photographed i used the macro switch on the lens, as all i wanted was a pretty decent image of the egg. If i want more of the foliage plus the egg in focus i just use the lens as if i were taking pictures of butterflies, but slightly closer. But this is easier said than done, it normally takes a lot of patience, a couple of hundred attempts and, a lot of b..... swearing, especially when its as windy as it has been the last few days, making it a nightmare to photograph something so small. [My wife is going to buy me some close-up tubes, so hopefully will make photographing small objects a lot easier] As for finding the eggs after the butterfly leaves, in this case the Comma`s egg, i look for a very small bright white spot on the edge of the leaf, [which has`nt failed me yet] the white spot being the light`s reflection on the egg, making it easier to find. I hope some of that helps.

All the best, Nick.

Cheers for the info Nick I'll have a go now I know whatI'm looking with my 105 lens. I 'm thinking about buying some extension tubes to give me a further working distance. Keep up the excellent work

Have a goodun

Wurzel

These two pictures are a follow-up to the Comma`s ovum i found on Sat. 27th July and photographed. This is how it looks after three days.

Hi Nick.

Super work. I particularly like the first of your latest two images and look forward to future instalments

Good hunting.

Kindest regards. Mark