www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Someone has to start a July thread because we're still posting in the June thread

Bill

"When in doubt - venture out"

A good Transect walk at Hutchinsons Bank today, Dark Green Fritillary and a White Admiral, only had standard lens on the camera, but got the record shot below.
We normally only get a few White Admirals, as they breed in the Frylands Wood complex opposite, but this butterfly was checking out the shady scrub for honeysuckle.

Purple Emperor high in the trees nectaring on tree sap this evening, can anyone help with the gender please?

Regards

Bill

Looks like a male to me
Kind regards
Mark

My first of this season,somewhat late-about 25ft up.

As the Emperor is not playing ball yet, and the weather was set fair, I used one of my emperor days to catch up with a couple of species that I hadn't seen for a good few years, and made the 350 mile journey to the Lake District
Fortunately the butterflies played ball and I only dipped out on High Brown Fritillary.
I especially like the very fresh Northern Brown Argus trying its best to imitate a Purple Emperor
Kind Regards
Mark

The Times today Saturday in its Nature Notebook illustrates a new discovery in Derbyshire.

Jack

Some nice White-letter Hairstreaks yesterday at Hadleigh Country Park in Essex

Spent 3 hours+ at Darland Banks yesterday afternoon/evening (4/7/15) the target species being Chalk-Hill Blue I found just the one CHB, a super fresh male, looking like he had emerged on the day? other species seen were - Painted Lady, Red Admiral, Silver washed Fritillary, Marbled White, Meadow Brown, Ringlet...and a possible Essex Skipper? I didnt start to take any photos until after 6.30pm either, so the low sun was a factor. I really didnt think i would even see a CHB, but was very pleased i found one.

The day before (3/7/15) I dropped in on a local hotspot for White Admirals, sighting 2 possibly 3?

Some photos, cheers Paul.
PS. Looks like i might have been bitten by some Horse Flies I have 3 bites on my lower right leg The next 3 days are going to be fun...not!!

Location - Darland Banks, Gillingham, Kent.
A possible Essex Skipper?...could anyone confirm this please

White Admiral, the day before.

Couple of shots of an Emperor that I nearly trod on at Knepp Castle today, they don't come down very often apparently so i wasn't looking on the ground - that'll teach me to look where I am going!!!!

Wow, Mark!

Fabulous shots Mark, I have only managed to photograph the species once, I got some good shots but I could only get the blue to show on one wing or the other, never on both wings like this and certainly not as bright. Outstanding!
Definitely a 'right place, right time' moment.

You can stop looking now Mark cos you won't get better than that The last shot I managed to get, well, someone's bare toes somehow managed to dominate the shot

Thanks all
Mr. Hume taught me the double purple trick well - although I was fortunate that he landed in some shade and was very happy to open up - hung around for 15 minute or so, so I had plenty of time to get the angle right and fired off nearly 150 shots tk make sure
Kind regards
Mark
PS Pauline - of course I had my lucky flip-flops on and he did actually land on my toe again but I have not posted the photos to protect the innocent

Congratulations Mark. I met Richard Roebuck while on today's Knepp tour, who you had spoken to after getting the shot, so from his description I had my suspicions that it was you who had struck purple! Delighted to have this confirmed. Nice job - and congrats from Matthew.
BWs, Neil

The skipper is for sure a Essex skipper

Posted twice in error - didn't appear initially.

Jack

The double purple has eluded me in photographs (although have seen that with my own eyes) so very well done Mark.

A fascinating article about butterfly wing colours with some superb ultra-macro photography.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... cales.html

Is it possible to make (or does it already exist?) an artificial coating that could be used to produce the same effect? It almost exists on some road signs. The uses would be endless from sports persons’ clothes, scarecrows – the limit is only the imagination.

Jack

I was suprised, and very pleased to see a female Long-tailed Blue ovipositing on everlasting pea in a friend's garden near Exeter yesterday morning. It could have been imported, but as there has been an impressive influx of moths from the continent over the last few days I think it's likely that it's a genuine migrant.

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, but there's a record phone photo here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/61117641@ ... ed-public/ and my friend managed some better shots. If the eggs turn out to be fertile, I'll return to look for the caterpillars and (if I'm lucky) newly emerged adults - I'll now go and do some reading up on the Kent butterflies to work out when I need to start looking.

After missing out on the action in 2013 I'd love it if we had some breeding butterflies down here in the South West, there's plenty of everlasting pea on the East Devon coast!

Susie wrote:Wow, Mark!

Yeah Wow mark
Didn't go to Straits on Sunday as the morning weather didn't look conducive to grounded emeprors. Wished I'd given it a go now

Phil