www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Starting this week, here is the opportunity to post your favourite photo(s) of a particular species taken in 2012 (or the last time you saw one!).

This is part of a series of topics which will grow over 20 weeks throughout the winter until all 59 UK species have been covered. The intention is to showcase three species per week (in alphabetical order), so please wait until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos. Our overseas friends are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants.

Details of locations, dates, times and circumstances would be welcome and please feel free to contribute observations of behaviour, stories of personal encounters, anecdotes or other interesting points.

Vince

I'll kick off with a fresh female on 2nd June, in the canton of Geneva:



Black hairstreaks are rare in my part of Switzerland but still present in good numbers in the lowlands west of Geneva.

Guy

Lovely shot, Guy. This is one of just two British species that I've yet to encounter and hopefully 2013 will see that change.

David M wrote:This is one of just two British species that I've yet to encounter and hopefully 2013 will see that change.

I hope that the Black Hairstreak fares better in 2013 than it did this year for you David. The weather was awful throughout its flight period this year and sightings were few and far between.

This picture is of a Monks Wood specimen.

Here are my first two Black Hairstreak photographs that I have ever taken and these were at Bernwood Forest in Oxfordshire in June. It was quite a windy day with heavy showers. They are not great images but I thought I would post them, because of the small numbers recorded this year. I saw several that day, mostly flying around the tops of ash trees. Only these two different butterflies were fairly low down and only stayed for a very short while. Does anybody know if they are male or females. The images above are very beautiful and what I would very much like be able to get one day. Peter.