www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

It's often said that data recording of butterflies can tell more about the distribution of recorders than of butterflies! Out of idle curiosity (it was raining this afternoon, here), I had a look at my own photo archive, to see which species have received most attention from my camera. I catalogue my digital photos using Expression Media (now Media Pro) software, so it was easy to print the list of images in each species category. These are the photos that I have kept, since moving to digital in 2005.
These numbers reflect many things but certainly not the abundance of the species! (poor Grayling!) Some species that involved special trips to find them get disproportionate coverage, while others that are rather difficult to photograph well are very under-represented. I always find Peacocks photograph well, and this is reflected in my results.

I wonder if other members find their photos show their own preferences (or prejudices)

NB I have no digital photos of High Brown Fritillaries so hope to rectify that shortly!

Without even looking, I know that Common Blue, and Orange-tip will be top of my list. I stopped doing long journeys for butterflies a long time ago. So just working with my local species, the poor Large, and Small Whites get least attention.

Regards Gruditch

I find the commoner the species I get fed up snapping them and if I do spot somthing different if given the chance I will snap away happily. I feel though this distorts the actual perception about the numbers of butterflies as a lot of pics of blue butterflies I have recently taken is of the same individual butterfly and not because there are lots of them about. I hardly ever saw any 6 spot Burnet moths over the last two years but this year I barely ever take pics of them because its too easy as they are everywhere I look. I even got a triple today of a Burnet plus a peacock and a tortiseshell on my Budliah plant. Now that I just had to take!