www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

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

Glanville Fritillary

I didn’t make it to my mainland site this year for Glanvilles but that didn’t matter as I arranged a meeting with Philzoid at the Wrecclesham. It was an absolutely cracking day and butterflies 1, 2 and 3 were all Glanvilles although they were too quick so I couldn’t get any photos of them. Butterfly 4 was a Green Hairstreak (which I couldn’t believe after having recently completed my Raiders of the Lost Green Streak quest) before we caught up with Philzoid, his daughter and Tuts. Over the next hour or so we watched endless Glannies; mating pairs, singles, pairs bombarding each other, taking nectar and basking in all manner of poses. It was truly fantastic, for me, to see them in such large numbers although the stalwarts were anxious that they weren’t in the same type of numbers as last year? Still with the focus purely on Glannies it was difficult for anything else to get anything more than a cursory glance but I do recall seeing Common Blues, Peacocks, Brimstones, some whites as well as a couple of Skippers. However the real star of the show, the A* celeb, was this aberrant Glannie. When it landed first of all I was happy to get some shots of the under wing which didn’t seem that unusual. However when it flew on slightly further and settled a second time it was pretty obvious that it wasn’t the same as the other individuals as it had a whole row of markings missing from the upper side fore-wing.
Glanville Fritillaries without trying, an aberrant to boot and the girls were happy as we had lunch in the play park while they went on the swings! Have a goodun

Wurzel

That's a nice aberration, Wurzel.

My favourites are this one basking in the sun,
and this underside shot.
Both photos were taken in the Alpes-Maritimes in May using a Canon PowerShot S100.
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Colin

I'm pleased to say Wrecclesham is not very far from me, though it still feels a bit like cheating compared to a daytrip to the Isle of Wight. Nevertheless, I went down on June 14th in typically unspectacular weather, and spent a couple of hours, mostly in the pleasant company of RobS and some very vocal frogs. Here are two Glanvilles from amongst the handful seen on the day.

Dave

A trip to Sand Point at the end of May provided me with my first views of this beautiful species on home soil. The weather was glorious and i saw many Glanvilles zooming around busily feeding. As evening fell i found a few roosting individuals including this one which seemed to be missing most of it's palp.
I spent the night in my car and got up really early the next morning to photograph more of the roosters before the sun appeared and they became really active again.

Southern England, June 2012

In search of Lady Eleanor …
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=5432&start=420#p61076

My Glanville was at Sand Point - the first time I had visited this mainland colony. It's a stunning promontory into the Bristol Channel and has lots of interesting flora as well as butterflies. I (unknowingly, at the time) met Nigel Kiteley there, though I didn't either spend the night in my car or get up really early in the morning! As a result, I had to contend with very active butterflies and needed to use my telephoto lens to capture them during brief feeding pauses.
Mike

I went to Wrecclesham on the 15th June which was a cold windy afternoon. I only saw three - I disturbed this one from where it was hiding in the long grass and it was so dopey it settled on my knee. Probably for warmth!

Some delightful shots there of one of Britain's most photogenic butterflies.

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The caterpillars are brilliant too, with their scary red faces:





Those were photographed on 17th March, 2012. Things are going to have to warm up pretty fast if they're to reach that stage by that time this year ...

Guy