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Small Skipper - Favourite Photo of 2020

Week 17

Aconites, Primroses, Snowdrops, Cocci and even Daffs are out – Spring is almost here…well almost as this week is set to be brass monkey weather! Oh well it’ll make those first butterflies all the more sweeter.

Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos as then it will be easier to keep track of things? Of course our overseas members are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants. As in previous years details of locations, dates, times and circumstances would be welcome as would any accompanying stories and anecdotes or other observations of behaviour and interesting other points.

Just a reminder - it might be a good idea to start selecting your Overall Favourite Butterfly Photo of 2020 now as we’re starting to draw to the grand finale.


Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

I choose this one, a pose normally reserved for it's Essex relative

I have allowed myself two favourite photographs for the Small Skipper. The first one is definitely THE favourite but I couldn't resist including the face-on shot. Whilst I hold nature in wonder and awe, I am not really sentimental about it but Skippers do tend to have delightful 'teddy-bear' faces.


http://eastsussexwanderer.blogspot.co.uk

I saw my Small Skipper on the 20th of June on my local patch HLB, It looked at me with a get lost look Goldie

Good numbers at my local patch Bewley Common, Wiltshire

Saw my first of the year on 13th June 2020. It was a cool, cloudy day so I was able to get close to them fairly easily:

From a lunchtime WFH wander round the field behind us on the 9th June.

The first 2020 Small Skippers appeared on my patch in mid June, which is a good week or two early for around here. Thereafter they were seen at all their usual spots albeit in no more than average numbers and their flight period, like the other 'golden' skippers, was on the short side here.
My favourite shot taken of this species in 2020 is probably this pair in cop.
Cheers,

Neil.

Small Skipper

This species seemed to have had a reasonable year, no great swarms but not hard to find. My Fave came from a trip to Garston Wood on one of those days when I wasn’t foolish enough to fall for the doom saying of the weather report. I was rewarded with an encounter that produced a shot which fell into two of my ‘collections’ – in the hand and close up. Hence the selection of this shot – it was an unexpected ‘twofer’.
Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

This is my first Small Skipper of the year, at Magdalen, on 8th June. I saw them through to 30th July.