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

Grayling

This is my favourite Grayling shot as it was my first Dorsetian Grayling. Each year for the past three years I’ve made a pilgrimage to Godshill in the New Forest for Grayling (as suggested by Alan Thornbury) and each year I’ve found and photographed Grayling. Also each year I promise myself that I will try a new site for them. Seeing this one purely by chance when I visited Studland (on our family camping holiday) allowed me to keep my promise to myself as well as adding to my “Dorset” tick list. This is now standing at 37; or 39 if you count Greenish Silver Washed Fritillary and H.Comma. Have a goodun
Wurzel

This tattered individual for me spelt the end of the semele season. The photo was taken on October 13, although I still spotted a couple over the following week. This one was in the scrubland on the plateau de Vitrolles near Marseilles, and was reluctantly feeding on Globularia as that was about all there was left to feed on.
Chris

Grayling numbers were pretty good this year at Deep Dene, near Windover Hill, a Downland site in Sussex. It is hard work here keeping up with the butterflies as the slopes of the hill are mighty steep!! Getting a butterfly showing the forewing is nigh on impossible but I was lucky to get a pair in courtship as well as another briefly flashing its 'eye' at me. As I was leaving the site I found another pair mating. http://bobsbutterflies.blogspot.com

I only managed a few photo's of Graylings this year and I like these out of the few, both were taken at Gaits Barrow on the 21st of July Goldie

I saw Graylings at two separate locations this year.
First was at Arnside Knott where I found good numbers, particularly around the areas of loose scree and where I took the photos below of both sides of the same individual.
About a month later I was on a family holiday in Dorset and found Graylings fairly well scattered about up on Bindon Hill at Lulworth Cove.
The individual below was actually found by my daughter Sarah when it landed on her leg as she was looking around the herb/wildlife garden by the visitor centre. It then flew onto a Buddleia that was just about finished flowering and where I took the photo below with the light from behind.
Cheers,

Neil.

This species exhibits some of the most interesting behavioural traits of all British butterflies and I just love watching them skip about lazily in the air in late summer.

They also confound established beliefs; for instance, they DO open their wings in certain situations, most reliably when courting.

Getting an image of this is an altogether different thing though. However I managed to snap a female giving a rarely seen upperside view on Kilvey Hill in Swansea on 13th August (male in close attendance):

Many lovely photos posted so far - of one of my favourite butterflies. 2013 was definitely a "Grayling" year for me and I travelled further trying to find the subspecies of this species than any other, by quite some margin. This includes:

The Great Orme in north Wales for ssp. thyone
St.Abbs Head in south east Scotland for ssp. scota
The Burren in western Ireland for ssp. clarensis
Ballyteigue Burrows in southern Ireland for ssp. hibernica (which took 3 separate visits to Ireland to finally track down!)
Greenham Common for ssp. semele

ssp. atlantica is a 2014 target, to complete the set! The "icing on the cake" was managing to photograph the courtship and subsequent pairing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNat4V3XlwI[/video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vHzIVvIUv8[/video]

Cheers,

- Pete

I particularly like this one, seen at Dawney's Hill in Surrey at the end of a hot 27th July. This species is spectacularly well camouflaged at this site, and I tripped over several other individuals before successfully following this one to ground. The numbers of female Silver-studded blues around were a distraction too. Even with the close approach I managed, it was hard to see the butterfly and frame the shot. Maybe I need better glasses... Dave

Fantastic photo's and video's Pete Goldie

Male Grayling on tiptoe on a hot afternoon.


While others, take refreshment or 'catch some rays'.

Not a great photo but my first ever grayling, seen at Windover Hill this year.