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Comma - Favourite Photo of 2023

Week 3

Another week on and despite there still being some butterflies about hopefully these Favourite threads are brightening the evenings!

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

Comma

I actually had a good year with Commas this year after a bit of a shaky start. The summer brood/form Hutchinsonii in particular appeared in good numbers and offered up plenty of cracking photo opportunities. I chose my Favourite from among this batch. It came from a visit to The Devenish where a couple of Commas were hanging about on the Bramble bushes along the little track up to the first Paddock on the side of the Down. One was a beautiful golden orange colour which caught my eye initially but it was quickly usurped by the second which was almost two tone – a dark marmalade ground colour with very, very heavy black markings – the most heavily marked Comma that I’ve encountered and so brilliantly striking.
Have a goodun

Wurzel

I didn't see my first comma in 2023 until September. I was visiting Logie Steading near Forres and decided to take a stroll through the walled gardens. To my surprise I spotted 3 to 4 commas feeding high on some buddleia.

I was lucky enough that they descended from up on high and landed in a more accessible place for a photo opportunity.

Best of the bunch attached.

Cheers,

Bert.

Bertl wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 8:56 pm..I was lucky enough that they descended from up on high and landed in a more accessible place for a photo opportunity...

They can be very accommodating poseurs at times, Bertl.

I especially like that second image showing off the verdegris margins.

Thanks David.

They were very active while the sun was out and the buddleia was just too high for me to photograph them.

I was close to leaving the walled garden when the sun hid behind a couple of clouds and they decided to leave the buddleia.

They were very accommodating once that happened.......and became the ultimate poseurs.

Bert.

Early April, and at last managed my first butterfly photo of the year, at a local nature reserve. Thought this one had unusually warm colours and light markings for an overwintered individual.
Summer generation individual from Ashtead Common, looking down with some disdain at my paparazzo lens.
And one from a local nature reserve in late August. It became very cloudy as this one settled itself onto the ripe blackberries, and a a long lens was needed as it was sitting some distance away high up in the hedge. Given this combination, my efforts fell somewhat short of achieving the requisite depth of field, but I still rather liked the picture despite the technical deficiencies.

2 different undersides from me ,lots of underwing variation among the Commas from Orlestone forest Kent especially the late Summer /early Autumn individuals .They seemed to have had a pretty good season and i found 7 or 8 individuals on most of my late summer visits.
Allan.W.

I saw my first Comma on the 30th June at East Blean Woods , I'd been looking for them since April with out luck, when I found this one in the Bushes on my visit there I was really pleased even the Comma seemed to say " about time too " Goldie

We only had two Commas all year in our Perthshire garden, but this hutchinsonii female (30th July) was a beauty. Hard to believe that when I lived in Hull around 1995, Comma was at its northern limit there!

Lovely hutchinsoni, Chris.

Commas have spread northwards considerably over the last two or three decades. Good to know they're establishing themselves in your neck of the woods.

We are getting a new species each year in my area, more often than not, David. Holly Blue, Specked Wood, Wall currently arriving. Expecting Small and Large Skipper, maybe White-letter hairstreak over the next decade. I was co-ordinator for the Millennium Atlas for East of Scotland and plenty has changed looking back. Scotland is gaining in some instances where species are suffering further south.

That part of the country is certainly one of the foremost for new species spreading in, Chris.

By 2050 you'll probably have Marbled Whites!!

I would welcome that David, one of my very favourite species and the one I miss most. Selfishly I would like to have it locally again, but I’m not sure what that would mean for the climate in general!

It would mean a significant general rise in temperature, Chris, which I believe is inevitable.

I'm glad I'm on my way out, and not on my way in!

Plenty of Commas came out of hibernation around here this spring, not as many as Small Tortoiseshells but more numerous than Peacocks. I saw my first one at my local spot by Wagon Lane on 17th Feb but then there was a gap until mid march before I saw any more with numbers increasing through the rest of March and April.

The example below struck me as being a bit pale for a spring ex-hibernator, almost looking like a summer hutchinsoni
There was a similar pattern around here in the summer with the Commas again being more numerous than Peacocks but lower in numbers than Small Tortoiseshells.
There were some notably large hutchinsoni females around this year, something that unfortunatly doesn't come across in photos.
Cheers,

Neil

That’s interesting Neil - we had the opposite up here in Scotland with Small tortoiseshell populations collapsing to possibly below that of Comma in many areas, but Peacocks remaining stronger than both. I thought Small T was struggling everywhere- is it appearing to be cyclical where you are?

For the past few years I have been seeing good numbers of Small Tortortoiseshells around my local patch here in Solihull in the midlands. This year, although they were still quite numerous, numbers were down on last year, for example last year I would see upwards of a couple of dozen in the spring and then 30-40 in the summer each time I went out, whereas this year my highest count in the spring was 18 with similar numbers on a few occasions in the summer.
It will be interesting to see what the numbers are like next spring.

Neil.

In terms of numbers seen, Commas outnumbered Small Tortoiseshells almost exactly 10:1 on my local patch in 2023 (and there were well over twice as many Peacocks as Commas).

I love the variety displayed by both the hutchinsoni brood in midsummer......and the hibernating brood later in the year.As I've mentioned before, they make up for the lack of fritillaries on my local patch.

Dave

My favourite image from 2023 was probably this one, taken at the National Botanic Gardens of Wales on 7th September:
These two, both at Teifi Marshes in Pembrokeshire, also appealed because the markings were unusual:

Nothing much compares to Comma for excitement. Spring Comma chasing is always much anticipated. Summer Comma are always fleeting and elusive yet finding a perfect one can mean everything. Then the late summer and Autumn Comma. To be torn to pieces by Bramble thorns whilst hunting the ultimate Comma is an annual treat. These were all Scottish Borders both Spring and Summer and Autumn Comma 2023.