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Small Skipper - 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 saw the Small Skipper at Reculver on the 28th of June , it was a hot day, I didn't see too many after that day, I don't think heat, and vegetation, was good for them every thing was dried up. Goldie

Small Skippers did pretty well locally ,these two males from the North Downs near Wye in Kent ,are my favourites. Allan.W.

My favourite Small Skipper photograph was of this mating pair.


http://eastsussexwanderer.blogspot.co.uk

When the weather is suitable I often take an evening walk around my garden to look for roosting butterflies. Usually, the Small Skipper spends the night of grass stems, however this one was settling down on a Knapweed.

Almost missed out on this species in '22. Found a couple of worn ones locally in late July but this was the freshest I came across, on 27 July at Swell's Hill Bank, Glos:

This species appeared on my local patch in mid-June, and numbers built so that I was able to count 30-40 on a local walk in early July before the weather became really hot. By then though their numbers had been overtaken by those of the Essex Skipper (going by rough ratios of positively identified butterflies) so that over a hundred small orange butterflies were whizzing about on some days. Not far away at Staines Moor, the Small Skipper population is slightly later emerging but is even stronger (and here it would seem to have no competition from its close relative: could there be a link?), so all in all I had plenty to choose from.Probably out of all of them, the overall favourite was the very first one I saw, on 12th June. Dave

From Warton Crag bringing back memories of an enjoyable short break in a beautiful part of the country.

Much like their 'Large' and 'Essex' brethren, Small Skippers were around my local spots in good numbers but had a shorter than usual flight period, no doubt as a consequence of the hot and dry weather we had then.

One of my favourite was this fresh example seen at my local spot at Wagon Lane which was seen in the flat pose that they sometime adopt when newly emerged.
A couple of days later I found this example at Blythe Valley that had a white forewing that I believe is caused by temperature fluctations in the pupa.
At the end of the month I found plenty of good condition examples still flying up around Arnside when we were up there for a few days.
Cheers,

Neil

Small Skipper

Three of the Golden Skippers can be found in the environs of my workplace and so I can often spend a lunchtime just enjoying them buzzing and bustling about. I chose this one from the many that I saw at work as I liked the ‘typical butterfly’ pose it was throwing which show of the delicate underside and the very fuzzy thorax and abdomen.
Have a goodun

Wurzel

I wonder if I could use this favourite photo link to ask a question that has been bugging me about the Small Skipper for over 25 years. We have been visiting this fenland area of Lincolnshire where we now live for 30 years, and moved over and set up our butterfly garden in 1997. Throughout this time the Essex Skipper has far outnumbered the Small. Both Skippers, plus the Large, frequent the flowery dyke banks and of course our garden. But the Small has never been seen anywhere in the local vicinity in any numbers, despite it being common in other parts of Lincolnshire, often more so than the Essex. There is no shortage of Yorkshire Fog, and this one photographed was the only one seen in our garden in 2022, with the Essex being in its normal abundance of over 30 seen at one time. Any ideas folks?