Comma/Holly Blue

[Dave McCormick]

The first spotted comma in this area of Co Down since 1997-98 (These were in Mountstewart, last spotted in Portaferry) and its reported rare in this area. Only 1 was spotted today, sorry for not great pics, my dad took them:





also noticed more holly blues than I have ever seen, must be about 7+ at each of the 10 different sights I visited all in a 1 mile radius of eachother. Most flying/feeding low to or on ground. Is that common to see them so low to ground? I even managed to get one to crawl onto my finger as it was sucking moisture from ground and one was feeding on a dead fox (smelled so bad, so no pic and a small tortoiseshell was there too), and found one on a bluebell but camera was on sports mode and got a bad pic of it, whoops, sucks it would have been an intresting shot. Here is one feeding on ground (male) I took this:



f/7.1
1/500sec
ISO-250
Metering = Pattern
Handheld
No Flash

[eccles]

I have often seen holly blues siphon up minerals from damp ground. Congratulations on your comma.

[jellyang]

No Comma's in Norfolk yet but I too have seen lots of Holly Blues. I think it must have been a good year for them, never seen so many together before.

Angie

[Denise]

I also have a lot of Holly Blue's in my garden this year. 6 together at one point last week. I have only seen 4 together since, and they do like the highest branches which are so difficult to photograph but I'll keep trying!

Denise

[Martin]

Great HB photo Dave

[Dave McCormick]

Looking around the same area this evening, and here is a holly blue female:



f/4.5
1/350sec
ISO-200
Exposure = 0 Step
Metering = Average
No Flash
Handheld