www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Can anyone confirm the ID of this blue butterfly please. It was caught in the radiator grill of our car. Boggy fields and mixed woodland habitat. Sormland, Sweden July 14th.

It is a silver-studded blue, Plebejus argus.

Guy

Thanks very much for the ID.
Mick

padfield wrote:It is a silver-studded blue, Plebejus argus.

Guy

In kit form.

This story reminds me of the time in my schoolboy 1950s when a then well know professional bird egg collector worked in a local petrol station ~ it was his own business I believe. He once served a motorist and remarked to him that he had been down a certain road through woods alongside the River Wye some thirty miles away.

The motorist wondered how he could possibly know that. He explained that the dead moth impaled on his car's radiator was only found in that precise locality.

Luck and pure coincidence plays a part in everyone's lives I guess. I met that man when he was retired and quite old by an amazing set of circumstances.

Up on Haresfield Beacon where he lived closeby, just a few cycle miles out of Gloucester with my younger brother and a couple of friends, we had had a good day butterflying there. My headstrong younger brother would not listen to my advice about riding down the steep hill ... a 1 in 4 down the Cotswold scarp !... He just would not listen. Off he went at speed and was soon out of sight. I followed a few seconds behind and when we got to a long straight, expecting to see my brother further head ... no sign of him.... ... Long story short, at the first curve in the steep hill he was not able to negotiate it. He crashed into and through the hedge so he and his bike ended up on the lawn of this chap's house ... He was knocked out for a few moments apparently. We all got talking to this most interesting old bloke ~ he had a very large aviary in his garden with an injured but otherwise healthy Buzzard and a pair of Ravens in it too. I had never seen a Raven before. He had an excellent knowledge of the local Bird and Butterfly sites .. what really puzzled me was his naming one of the more extensive woods up there the "Hobby Wood". It was good for local butterflies and despite many visits later I never once saw what was to become my favourite bird of prey. I began to suspect that the old man was pulling my leg. That was until one day in that long hot summer of 1959, I saw my first ever Hobby on Edge Common not far away from where the old boy lived ~ Unlike many birds, it did not take flight and I was able to approach it quite closely. It was chasing large moths and other flying insects put up by the livestock and folks like myself wandering around the scrubby grassland ... A vision I shall always remember.

Also on his lawn were a massive, tripod mounted pair of German binoculars. The kind the Military would use for observations in the War only a few years before. Then and on later visits I spent much time viewing things through those Binoculars. I could even read the numbers on the Locomotives as they raced their trains through the little station about a mile away down on the railway at the bottom of the steep hill below. I have always been a keen transport enthusiast too.

Great days like so many others... gone forever.

Apologies for going off on one of my divergent off topic "tangerines" .... or is it tangents...
...

Susie wrote:

padfield wrote:It is a silver-studded blue, Plebejus argus.

Guy

In kit form.

I do feel sorry for the poor butterfly, for sure, but this has to be the funniest thing I've read today - you wicked woman

Cheers,

- Pete

Cotswold Cockney wrote:Apologies for going off on one of my divergent off topic "tangerines" .... or it it tangents... ...

Yes - but your stories are clearly read by many and remind us all of the heady days when butterflies and other wildlife abounded. Long may it continue!

Cheers,

- Pete

Thanks for that fascinating story CC... do you know what kind of moth was on the radiator ?

Charles

Charles Nicol wrote:Thanks for that fascinating story CC... do you know what kind of moth was on the radiator ?

Charles

Yes I do ... it was one of the rarer Hook Tips....

So, based on the information available, which one was it ?...
.

I like your stories too CC, that one is a corker.

I've just started reading a book of my uncle's by 'BB' called 'ramblings of a sportsman and naturalist'. It's not unlike some of your reminiscences (and there is a large amount in this book about Apatura Iris, even iole...)

Cheers

Lee