www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I was watching an area of bluebells and wanted to get a shot of a speckled wood that was in area. This failed.

What I did see was a bit odd I thought. I waited and a male small white came along and did not sit to photo. Then a female came along and male started chasing female around area. A few seconds later, the female left and the male went into, what I can only describe as a "daze".

The male started flying in roughly 10cm or less diameter circles around the patch the female was in before she left. The started zig-zagging area flicking antennae. I watched this for around 1min or so and then the male flew away.

Whats up with him?

Were there any white flowers in that area? Butterflies have good colour vision but poor resolution. White males will often investigate white areas so if a female had appeared near white flowers then flew away, it's posible the male mistook the flowers for the missing female and continued to display courtship behaviour.

Lets see... Nope, only yellow ones and bluebells.

Finally got around to looking at videos I took of this and could see it was a GV White, not a small or large white.