www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I was very excited to see Long Tailed Blue this year. Unfortunately I only got a glimpse and this is the best photo I managed! Quite a disappointment considering some of the stunning images people on this site managed
What was your "one that got away"?

I really like that image Susie , it's very evocative.

I've discarded most of my bad stuff, but retained this one for its novelty value.
I was doing my yearly check of a small White Letter Hairstreak colony which I discovered in local woods a few years ago. While taking a record shot of a male at the top of the master tree, I got a passing aircraft in the frame.
I think I'll keep it

Vince

One of the consequences of digital photography is that all those awful shots that used to clutter up slide boxes and print packets now succumb to the 'delete' key!

I had a close shave once (not, actually, in 2013), when a rather dull series of photos turned out to be of an extremely rare bird, which was only identified (by others) on the following day, and even appeared on the local TV News. Fortunately, my shots on that occasion had not gone beyond the 'Recycle' bin. They were taken in good light, whereas the weather on the following days was dull and wet, so mine became some of the best available

Mike

a category I can add to...... alas I have too many to choose from

This is probably the worst photo that I actually kept, but in my recycle bin there are many worse than this.

I'm sure someone will rapidly identify it. (Well I know what it is.)
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Colin

Vince Massimo wrote:I got a passing aircraft in the frame.

I'm very impressed by your aircraft recognition skills (in the caption), Vince. All modern airliners look the same to me!

Your WLH looks very similar to lots of my Purple Hairstreak shots

Mike

Is that an arion, Colin?

MikeOxon wrote: I'm very impressed by your aircraft recognition skills (in the caption), Vince. All modern airliners look the same to me!

Thanks Mike, my original caption was a best guess, based upon my observations at the time. However, just out of interest, I have just checked "Planefinder" http://planefinder.net/ to see if I was correct (and I so nearly was). Caption now corrected .

Vince

I think I described on here back in August a remarkable day at Ashlawn Cutting in Rugby. I saw a Silver-Washed Fritillary (my first ever) and a White-Letter Hairstreak (again my first ever). Unfortunately the spot where I saw the SWF was so gloomy my DSLR's auto-focus couldn't focus in time before it disappeared into the trees and I failed to get even a bad photo of it! It eventually transpired that a quite a number of other local Butterfly Conservation members had seen them at the same site in the wonderful summer that 2013 turned out to be, so not getting a photo wasn't a massive problem (much as I would have liked to get one). It was the first time they'd been seen there for at least 20 years. When I saw the WLH about half an hour later I got several photos, and I created quite a stir. It seems I was the first and only person to see one there for about 20 years. I got photos, but I was shaking with so much excitement that even the anti-vibration feature on my camera couldn't overide it. All twenty-odd photos were rather crap and blurred. I realised after the event that somehow I'd knocked the auto-focus setting to the lower left-hand corner of the viewfinder, as the attachment demonstrates! Strangely, in the past I had visited other sites around Rugby where WLHs were known to exist but without any joy.

Hmmm, at this resolution the photo doesn't look too crap, actually. Apologies!

Matsukaze wrote:Is that an arion, Colin?

No. I'll give the solution tomorrow if nobody finds it beforehand.
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Colin

Chalkhill or Adonis Blue?

William wrote:Chalkhill or Adonis Blue?

Well done, William. In fact it is a Provence Chalkhill Blue. But even with an excellent photo it is different to tell the difference between the two.
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Colin

Looking back, it took me a while to work out what this one was - particularly as it was misfiled to start with...

One of those occasions when the insect itself turns end-on at the last minute and the camera then focuses behind the butterfly, creating a photo with no merits whatsoever! I have no idea why I didn't consign this to the overflowing digital waste bin at the time, but it has to be one of the worst of this year's survivors. Any guesses? It was in July...

Dave

Dave - I'll go Dark Green Fritillary?

There have been too many appalling photos for me to even refer to, but I suppose the one of poorest quality that I still went ahead and posted was of the solitary Large Tortoiseshell I saw in the Austrian Alps last July. I was absolutely right to 'snap' it from a distance as it set off like a Porsche as soon as I came within 10m of it and the only image I was left with was this 'beauty':

William wrote:Dave - I'll go Dark Green Fritillary?

Spot on, William! It took me a little while to work it out, and I was there...

Dave

this one not because it is a terribly bad pic but because it is rather tragic:
the butterfly had dived straight into my wineglass; my rescue attempts were not successful

millerd wrote:

William wrote:Dave - I'll go Dark Green Fritillary?

Spot on, William! It took me a little while to work it out, and I was there...

Dave

Dave - I have a lot of experience of trying to piece together IDs from my own 'bloopers'.

A few years ago I posted a deliberately awful picture in the monthly competition. It was a Large White, badly out of focus and horrendously over-exposed.

One person gave the feedback that I had hoped for: advice on adjusting exposure for white butterflies, how to get crisp focus and so on

Jack