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

I've rarely encountered valezina females as I usually see SWFs way out west where the form doesn't occur. However, whilst visiting Alner's Gorse on 31st July, I chanced upon this beautiful example:

This is the only photo i managed in 2012, a beautiful female, in perfect condition. This species were in very short supply on my local patch, so i was really pleased with this picture.

Silver-washed Fritillary
This was taken on the 1st July at Bentley Wood and one of the reasons it’s my favourite is the memories associated with it. I’d visited the site the day before with both the girls and we’d made our own spotters list. The first butterfly of the day then was Large Skipper, closely followed by a Silver Washed in the car park. I soon found however that it was pretty tricky to get any shots with both girls there, not because they were misbehaving or moping along bored, in fact just the opposite – my younger daughter was looking for anything to tick off of her list so there were long periods of staring at Bracken because she was sure she’d seen something either that or I was doing my best to answer all of their questions.
The next day I headed back and had the site almost entirely to myself for a good few hours. It was fantastic wandering the reserve with only the sound of bird calls as accompaniment. I even ended up in a totally new part of the site for me – Donkey Copse. I’d already bagged this shot by then and I was just so happy to find it that when I reflected back on my favourite of the year this one jumped out immediately. Reasons 2 and 3 for its selection were that I really like the unusual posture it had chosen for roosting in and the way the wings a splayed forward revealing almost all of the upper side of the hind wing, a shot I’ve not got before. Have a goodun

Wurzel

I can't remember what the outcome of this encounter was. It's not a brilliant photo but it puts a bit of action on the page!



Guy

Both of these were from Botany Bay.

My favourite Silver-washed Fritillary photo is this underside of a valesina form female.
--
Colin

One from Alice Holt Forest on a sunny July afternoon.

I saw quite a few Silver-washed Fritillaries in 2012, at least as many as in 2011 if not more, mostly at Oversley Wood in Warwickshire but also at Ryton Wood and Snitterfield Bushes.

A male from Oversley Wood,
a female from Snitterfield Bushes,
and this pair from Ryton Wood. They spent a few minutes vibrating wings at each other before going their separate ways. I don't know how but I seem to have captured the vibrations in the photo
Cheers,

Neil.

Here's a couple of photos of the same individual at Black Park (near Pinewood Studios in Bucks) taken on 5th July. This one posed beautifully in a variety of positions and stayed around long enough to be studied without the camera (easy to forget to do sometimes!). A lovely butterfly.

Dave

I spent much of July and August in Spain so i never got to see this beautiful fritillary on home soil. However i was lucky enough to find a few in a meadow in Spain in July. I managed a few photos and this was my favourite, taken early morning.

the closest i've got to an angled subject nearly all in focus is why this one is a favourite.

This old chap had seen better days.

I am lucky enough to have Silver-washed Fritillary in my local woods, but they seldom present themselves for photos. However, on a dull warm day in August I found a female resting on a hazel bush in between bouts of egglaying. She had found the mossy trunk of a Hawthorn which had Dog Violet at its base and was depositing eggs into crevices in the bark. Then she would take off and land back at the same resting spot before returning to the hawthorn for more egglaying.
The eggs would have hatched within a few weeks and the emerging larvae will spend the winter in a crevice of the bark before descending to the food plant the following spring.

In 2011 my latest sighting of this species was 2nd September, but in 2012 they were still to be seen on the wing on 4th September when I was holidaying in Lynton and Lynmouth, North Devon.

Vince