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

It was very difficult to choose my favourite Red Admiral. It was the first Species I saw in2012, I saw them throughout the year and it was the last species I saw. In fact for the last month of the season they were almost all I saw! The diversity of habitats was quite staggering – Grasslands, Heaths, Woodlands, on the coast, car parks, gardens and the centre of towns. However my favourite shot came from my greenhouse. When I first got into Butterfly photography I found a Small White in my greenhouse, last year it was a Green Veined White and this year it was the turn of the Red Admiral.
Having saved it from the butterfly equivalent of concussion and getting fried it crawled onto my hand and I held it outside to release it. Rather than flying off straight away it took a few trips round my hand and then settled down to bask! I had to go back inside so I blew on it gently and after a few seconds where it seemed to wake up it was off! Have a goodun

Wurzel

After such a poor season, I was delighted to find a bonanza of Vanessids on the wonderful herbaceous border at Waterperry Gardens, Oxfordshire. This was a favourite because of the way in which the reflected light from the flower has illuminated the subtle cryptic markings on the wing underside.
Mike

My favourite Red Admiral of 2012:
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Colin

most of the blue buddlieas were wasted this season with wet weather, thankfully a later flowering white did the business for me this year. I liked this one as i don't think it could have had it's wings any further open. the red admirals had a cracking season and were pretty much present daily weather permitting.

Hard to resist photographing a Red Admiral when you see one. I saw a fresh one at West Williamston in late August basking on a leaf and managed to snap it before it zoomed off on its merry way:

I have so many Red Admiral photos, but there were a couple I liked particularly. One is a silouhette taken after sunset of a still active butterfly that had been harrassing me as I walked along (plus the same view, taken with flash for comparison). The other is a distant shot of no less than five Red Admirals in the middle of a soaring chase in the treetops. (A wider view I have shows two more insects, but it is impossible to say whether they were also Red Admirals: fading memory tells me that one was a Comma.) This captures for me the energy and agility of this insect...

Dave

I had a difficult time last Summer even finding a Red Admiral until Sept when I managed at last to get a photo so this one out of the ones I took must be my Favourite Goldie

I had a good year with Red Admirals with more visiting the garden than for some years. From July onwards I seemed to have at least one regularly staking out the nettle patch at the end of the garden and sometimes there would be 2 or 3 spiralling high up into the sky.
Then came my week in Dorset in early September when numbers seemed to build until I saw hundreds on the heather behind the dunes at Studland followed by a few weeks when they were everywhere I went.
Cheers,

Neil.

Ticehurst, 18 September 2012

Pick your own …

A beautiful female at rest.
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=5432&start=540#p65453

Wow. That female looks gravid beyond capacity, Mark.