www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Week 6.

Here is the opportunity to post your favourite photo(s) of a particular species taken in 2013 (or the last time you saw one!).

This is part of a series of topics which will grow over 20 weeks throughout the winter, eventually covering all 59 species which are regularly found in the British Isles. 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 members 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

Gatekeeper

This is my favourite of the many, many Gatekeeper shots which I took this year and it fitted nicely into the “Carter Collection”. It will be filed as “unh5”. It’s my fave as I like the way that the light has caught the wing margins making it appear as if surrounded by a halo. Nice. Have a goodun
Wurzel

Gatekeepers are exotic for me because they don't exist around Marseilles. I have had to go a fair way north to see any, either in the Massif Central or, as for this male, in Brittany (north west France) - closer to home !!! The colour seems to vary a lot compared to Wurzel's.
Chris

I was lucky at High and Over to find a very fresh male. The sun was getting quite low so it was difficult to keep my shadow off the butterfly but the low sun seemed to have brought out the male scent scales on the topside shot. http://bobsbutterflies.blogspot.com

I have a couple I really like taken at differant places, my first was taken at Hall-Lee-Brook in Westhoughton on the 25th of July and my second was taken in the Sand dunes at Southport on1st of August I really couldn't choose between them Goldie

Loads of Gatekeepers about again locally but it seems that I did not take that many photos of them this year. I did manage a few that I was pleased with however, including the male below with reduced forewing eye-spots and complete lack of hindwing spots seen at Castle Hills near Solihull.
My favourite Gatekeeper photo this year is of this female sitting on an old fence panel at the bottom of my garden with the neighbours shed providing a nice background.
Cheers,

Neil.

Again both images taken in Bentley Wood. I seem to have spent a lot of time in there this year. Taken with a 5d Mk3 and 300mm lens.

Settings f13, 1/100s and ISO800
Settings f9, 1/160s and ISO800

Like Dingy Skippers, I paid scant attention to this species in 2013.

I think that was largely due to it being such a late year. By the time Hedge Browns were first appearing, my sights were aimed at other species. I then decamped to Austria and hadn't been back a week when I was off to the Isle of Man for a few days (where, sadly, Hedge Browns are absent).

I honestly think this was my best image of the year (must do better in 2014):

Hi! David isn't it unusal for a Gate Keeper to have two black spots extra on both wings? Goldie

Just looked it up and I think it's an abberration ab.fros-y-ffin Goldie

Sankey Valley Warrington , at the back of my garden with other species