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Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Favourite Photo of 2022

Week 17

Where has the time gone! It seems like only yesterday that I was starting out with the 2022 Favourite threads and nowhere we are into February with the end in sight! I know it's a bit early this week but I'm out over the usual time

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.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

I managed to see this species in two spots in 2022, several hundred miles and nearly two months apart. Firstly there were a handful of fresh ones down at Park Corner Heath in Sussex on 18th May......and then one or two worn examples up at Fen Bog on the North York Moors on 8th July.Quite a contrast in habitat!

Dave

I was visiting a site on the Cornish cliffs where I had previously seen a few of this species but found very little of anything on the wing. I decided to check out an adjacent gully on the off chance and hit the jackpot. For about an hour, I watched maybe 50 individuals in a steep gully only 50 m long and 30 m at its widest. Never have I seen them in such numbers, I hope to check it out again in 2023. Apologies for multiple “favourite” photograph.

That penultimate individual is a really interesting one, Wolfson.

David M wrote: ↑Sun Feb 05, 2023 7:21 pm That penultimate individual is a really interesting one, Wolfson.

Agreed, it caught my eye

Visited my favourite haunt at Cambus o may on Deeside on 15th June to see the SPBF. Best photos attached.

After going extinct (again) at Abbots Wood, Park Corner Heath was the next closest place to find them. I was lucky enough to find this female shortly after arriving.

Meant to add some photos from my trip to Grantown on 27th June.

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

With the Small Pearls effectively gone from Bentley Wood (I still live in hope that they’ll crop up one years having been hiding away in a clearing elsewhere in the wood) I had to actually travel to see them this year and so I found myself venturing to Priddy Pools. The trip proved to be very worthwhile as there were several flying around a small hill which appeared to be the local hot spot and so I was in a the brilliant position of struggling to choose my Favourite shot which made a very welcome change. In the end I couldn’t decide between two so I chose them both…

The first was in celebration of the trip and the fact that there were Small Pearls in number as it had two in one frame – it’s been years (if ever) since I’ve seen this at Bentley Wood! The second – well as most people know I do like a stained glass shot and a close up and this shot has both. Have a goodun

Wurzel

Nothing special about the quality of this image, but its provenance made it abnormally worthy - a first sighting of this species at a site I have visited for over a decade to see its close relative, Pearl Bordered Fritillary: Ewyas Harold Common, near Pontrilas, Herefordshire, on 14th May:

Priddy Mineries, Somerset - probably the best site in the county for this butterfly. 11 June 2022.