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Week 16.

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

Silver Washed Fritillary

This was taken on a great day in August (19th) at Martin Down. I’d taken the girls for a picnic and after we’d had lunch in a Bivvie near the hotspot I spent a sweltering hour finding and photographing a whole range of butterflies from the Blues to Silver Spotted Skippers, Clouded Yellows to Coppers. It was one of those magnificent days when every few steps would yield something interesting or different to photograph.
Eventually the girls enthusiasm began to wane so we started the dusty walk back to the car with several stops on the way to prevent whinging occurring. The girls had already raced the final stretch back to the car and were waiting for me when I was stopped in my tracks by an unusual sight – a ghostly butterfly working its way along the hedge. When it paused for some nectar I nipped in for a few shots as I realised it was a Greenish (Valesina). It seemed like an unusual place to see it – along a hedge row in the middle of Downland grasses and I presume it was using them as a wildlife corridor between one area of woodland and another. This may also have explained why this is the first Greenish that I’ve seen in the open, all my others (4 in total) have always been back in the shade. So for the sheer unexpectedness and for being so out of place it classes as my favourite. Have a goodun

Wurzel

You can imagine my excitement when I walked down the garden on 27th July 2013 at 12.15 and found this male Silver-washed Fritillary sunning itself and nectaring on the pink buddleia. However on closer inspection I cottoned on to the fact that this was not the case, as it had in fact become the victim of a Crab Spider. Nature in the raw!!! I was obviously very pleased so see a Silver-washed Fritillary in the garden but not really like this. I think it was a new species for the garden, although I may possibly have had a flyover one summer a few years ago.
In my opinion this was an exceptional year for Silver-washed Fritillary as I know of a few that visited gardens and good numbers lingering on at some woodland sites well into August, some still in very nice condition. I found over 100 on 21st August 2013 in one Dorset wood. Here is my snapshot and you can see that naughty spider peeping coyly in the background.

Regards
Mike Gibbons

My favourite Silver-washed Fritillaries of 2013 are this handsome male
and this beautiful female f. valesina
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Colin

Nice photos Colin.
I photographed this one during my first BF season in 2011, before I started to understand what sexual dimorphism was about, and then spent weeks trying to identify it from all the fritillaries in my rather approximate beginners' field book, obviously ruling out the SWF, as only the male was depicted.
The moral to the story is, make sure a beginner gets a comprehensive field guide from the start.
Chris

This was in a garden on the edge of the New Forest on a brilliant sunny afternoon. Although I took a number of more conventional portraits, this shot seems to me to capture the feel of High Summer!
Mike

My first Silver-washed Fritillaries of 2013 were in the Heddon Valley in early July where I saw a few. The photo below was taken on one particular bramble covered sunny bank where there were a couple of SWFs mingling in with High Brown and Dark Green Fritillaries on one of those afternoons that will live long in my memory
A week later I was back home when during a walk around Oversley Wood, a brief flash of orange under the shade of an Oak tree drew my attention to a mating pair. It was very shady where they were settled so I used flash for this photo to light them up a bit.
Later that same week I was in Fermyn Wood where I took this shot of a male against the clear blue sky.
My overall favourite however is this female, simple because it was taken in my back garden
Not only was it the first SWF that I have had there but it is the first time that I have ever seen one anywhere within 20 miles of my house . It appear that SWFs had a good year in Warwickshire and I have heard that they were popping up all over the place, sometimes well away from their usual haunts.

Cheers,

Neil.

I didn't take many photos of this splendid butterfly this year, but a couple of shots of the same individual facing in different directions highlighted for me the contrast in colour you can get from varied lighting. A female seen at Botany Bay on 19th July. Dave

Paid scant attention to this species in 2013. I tended to be on the alert for other species whenever I encountered them, although I did photograph this female at Botany Bay on 17th July whilst hunting down Purple Emperors:

Silver-washed Fritillaries are a very familiar sight of high summer in the woods down south, so much so that they often don't get much more than a glance and not many a photo taken. These were my favourite pictures from last year from a visit to Bentley wood with Wurzel: our primary quest to seek the Purple Emperor. Eventually we did get our quarry but at distance (I won't be sharing that one) of an easily spooked individual on a log. It had been skilfully lured down from the treetops by a patient PE aficionado (we later dubbed Baitman) and his bag full of weird and wonderful excrescences . The Silver-washed frits were a good consolation but even better would have been a valesina which I've yet to see . Great pictures of the Valezina Wurzel and CFB I also like the artistic shot from MikeOxon and nfreems Heddon valley male the is a cracker too .