www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I visited Crook Peak today, climbing to the top from the small car park on the Webbington Road to look for wall and grayling.
Disappointed at first, I then spotted a bird, no idea what it is. It was a bit bigger than a sparrow I think. Can anyone identify it?


I then thought, oh well at least I can snap birds while I'm here but I then started to see grayings and then walls, lots of them,
mostly males and having a right old ding dong between them as well.
Grayings were quite easy to shoot when they weren't getting tangled up in wall territorial disputes:



Probably due to being on the lookout for territory incursions by other males, the walls were terribly skittish.
I'm also fairly certain they didn't like my white trainers as I could get within about six feet then as soon as they saw MY feet they were off.
For well over an hour I was chasing them getting thoroughly cheesed off with this damned species, so I tried a fallback,
which is to stack my 1.5x converter on top of the close up lens on my Canon S3.
Image quality takes a hit but with a bit of care choosing aperture size it's not bad.
This enables me to get a moderate close-up from about three feet away, and this is what I got:



That was the only open wing shot that any individual would allow, but I did get another shot with closed wings:



All in all, a satisfying day out with great views and lots of exercise.
Slopes are steep so wear stout shoes, preferrably not white (!), and stay out of the gorse to avoid ticks.

Great shots eccles, the bird looks like a Wheatear but I could be wrong.

eccles,

Congratulations on that underside shot of Wall!

How subtle and beautiful those patterns - and what perfect camouflage!

I wouldn't say your white trainers were the problem. I couldn't get near these critters in Sussex last month. I even saw one try and hide from me by wriggling behind blades of grass, hoping to make itself invisible. Another looked more confident as it landed and basked the other side of a fence, topped with barbed wire just a little too high for my inside leg!

These butterflies are very nervous of us and, possibly, very clever too!

Bryan

Super shots, the bird is defo a Wheatear

Thanks for the comments, all, and for the bird ID. I noticed when it took off that it had a conspicuous white rump, just checked it out in my bird book and sure enough that's an identifying feature.

I love the shots, the wall stands out as a really good one for me. Great