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

Painted Lady
I couldn’t decide on which of my Painted Lady shots was my favourite. In the end I managed to whittle it down to two but cold go no further. I only saw two definitely confirmable Painted Ladies this year in late August and both faves are of the same butterfly. I’d headed to Five Rivers with the express purpose of finding a Painted Lady and so I visited the large Buddleia bush first because of this. It was as usual proving to be a butterfly magnet with four Meadow Browns, a Green Veined White, two Small Tortoiseshells , four Red Admirals and a single Peacock all present on the one bush. A butterfly landed and looked pale-ish orange and then started feeding on a floret. It worked its way round and fed all over the floret spiralling head first down. Once completed it moved to the next and then started its spiral descent again.
The reason I chose these two shots is because they are the closest I’ve come to getting a closed wing and “stained glass window” shot. Have a goodun

Wurzel

The undersides of this species are very attractive, as Wurzel's image portrays.

I've opted for an upperside shot though, taken at West Williamston in August, of an individual displaying unusually bold blue hindwing spots:

West Sussex, 10 September 2012

Vanessids …
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=5432&start=540#p65230

Painted Lady were few and far between this year so both these 2 were from 2011. The underside was at Rowland Wood with the top side being 4th July at Whitbarrow in Cumbria, a few hours before the Northern Brown Argus favourite was taken.

Two photos of the same Painted Lady:
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Colin

Painted Lady 8th August 2012, Hampshire.

This rather battered individual was basking on the old stone steps into the main entrance of Whitby Abbey, North Yorkshire.
Mike

I saw a single faded Painted Lady at Babbs Mill when I went to check this site out for the first time with my son Chris back in June. I remember it being a pretty dull and windy day and the Painted Lady was the only butterfly that we saw.

For most of the summer this remained the only example that I saw until my week in Dorset when I saw a few more.
There were a couple in Lulworth and up on Bindon Hill but the most on one day was 5/6 amongst the masses of Red Admirals that I saw at Studland.

Photos below are all of the same individual at Studland, this one stayed around the same clumps of heather for quite some time whilst the others that I saw were more flighty in the heat of the afternoon.
Cheers,

Neil F.

This is an easy choice - I only saw the one butterfly all year. Interestingly, it was from the same location (Studland) as Neil's above, but a couple of days earlier on 1st September.

A bit of distracting vegetation has been "removed" from this image: I don't usuaully do this (not being very good at it), but this one seems ok.

Dave

Loads of Painted Ladies in the Malaga area this week - could this be signs that numbers will be better in 2013?