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Whilst watching Heath Fritillaries at Haddon Hill, I came across a couple in copulo.
As I watched them another male joned them and, whilst facing the wrong way, bent his abdomen back at nearly 180 degrees to try to displace the other male.
The original male actually kicked the interloper out of the way, which I have luckily caught in the attached photograph.
The original pair remained locked for over an hour, and the female climbed down the bracken and went deep into the undergrowth - presumably to wait for fertilisation to take place, and to lay.
A fascinating afternoon.

Rogerdodge. Did the female carry the pair into the undergrowth to take cover, or did they split and then the female move off?

When I saw Heath Fritillaries Last year at East Blean I came across tennis ball sized mating 'rucks' with presumably one female and a host of males all vying to kick out the original suitor who has got his work cut out. Although your male managed to fend off the interloper I assume this mob strategy does work on occasion.

WRT Heath Fritillaries, are females low in number or the males just keen on getting the job done with as many females as possible?

The male just left when he had finished his business.
I don't think he is going to call.
The famole went solo into the undergrowth.
Whilst we don't have the sort of density of populations here that you have in the Kent woods, I have seen up to half a dozen males trying to muscle in on a pair.
It seems the males are constantly patrolling looking for newly emerged females. I often see females "grabbbed" before they have fully inflated thier wings.

Great picture, Roger!

I've seen this kind of bullying with the abdomen in other species too. In this photo (from 2005) it is a male glandon blue going at a male (I think it's a male) Eros blue. He pushed him around for quite a while. I took it to be competition for some favoured mineral patch but it may have had a sexual element.



Guy