www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

My local patch has large and small skippers. I have positively identified a single male essex there, although not got a shot of one yet as it flew away after I identified it but before I could get a picture of it. Having identified at least one male there's a good chance others are there. However, the females are even more difficult to verify than males. I *think* the attached pic of a female is an essex but other opinions would be most welcome. Be aware the sun was fairly well down at about 4:30 pm this afternoon so the gold colouring is false.

I would say that is a small skipper, the essex's antenna tips are black.

Bare in mind I'm going purely on discriptions and Pete's photos, I havent actually seen an essex myself, photographed a few small skippers yesterday though! (and I'm no where near essex :-)

The tips of the antennae look black to me. Even the white bits are black.

Hi Eccles,

It is the underside of the antennae tips that distinguishes the Small from the Essex Skipper - and some Small Skippers can have very dark antennae except underneath. I was looking at one such today, and Pete has some Small Skipper photos which show this here on the site, such as this one:

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/image.ph ... %20(2).jpg

I am based about 10-15 miles south of you. The Essex Skipper is not uncommon and is under-recorded here; I've found 1 Essex to every 3-4 Small Skippers so far this year, with the unidentified ones running at about 10 times that!

You're probably right, guys. Thanks for the comments.