www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

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

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

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

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

Great HB photo Dave

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