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Green Hairstreak - Favourite Photo of 2015

Week 6

So continues sequence of posts giving one and all the opportunity to showcase their favourite shots of 2015!

Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos? Of course our overseas members are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants. As like last year details of locations, dates, times and circumstances would be welcome as would any accompanying stories and anecdotes or other observations of behaviour and interesting other points.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Not a particularly brilliant specimen but I like the colourful location and it was taken on a day when I also saw Large Blues!
Mike

Another easy choice of a favourite for me, my first ever G. Hairstreak:

This has to be my favourite - a rare example of a Middlesex Green Hairstreak! There are very few locations where the butterfly can be found in the county and this one was seen in the detached bit of Bedfont Lakes Country Park lying to the south of the railway line. It was gloriously sunny, but a strong cool wind was blowing - 18th April. One of the highlights of the year for me in fact.

Dave

My favourite this year was this egg-laying female, photographed on 7th May on my local patch in the mountains:



This is the egg she laid:



Guy

Green Hairstreak was one of the successes locally this year - this was one of seventy that i counted along three hundred meters of hedgerow at one of my local sites on the south downs.
Kind regards
Mark

This Green Hairstreak is from March 31st in the South of France. It is nectaring on Spurge.
I rarely see this species with anything other than a green background. Good job I like green
Cheers, Chris

Wow, Spring seems a long way away, looking back or forward. But that's what these Favourite Photo threads are about - to get us through Winter.

This was taken on Fleam Dyke, Cambs on 18-April-2015

My photos were taken at Gait Barrow on the 4th May I only saw this one Green Hair Streak all year so it's got to be my favourite, luckily it was easy to photograph although it did hide at times in the long grass. Goldie

Green Hairstreaks are quite commonplace near to where I live, and once again I saw quite a few of them in 2015:

Green Hairstreaks had a very good year in this part of Somerset, turning up in places I'd never seen them before, usually flowery grassy places with scrubby woodland to the north. This one was at Stockhill on the Mendips.

The photo doesn't really do it justice it was bright blue on the upper wing, Green/Blue Hairstreak, Barnack Hills & Holes, Cambs 4.5.15
It's not a trick of the light, it moved around an always had the blue showing, maybe wear caused the colour change,

Green Hairstreaks seemed to have a good season this year and I certainly saw a few during my travels during May, most notably at Ryton Wood Meadows but also at Prestbury Hill and at Barton Bushes by Adam Henson's Cotswold Farm Park when we went there on a family day out in late May. A few individuals were seen at other sites including a late example in the Heddon Valley on 29th June which was the second time that I have seen this species there at this time.

My first one of the year was at Bishops Hill in Warwickshire...
Most of my better photos were taken at Ryton Wood Meadows...
including the one below which is probably my overall favourite although I cannot decide which crop I like best so I am posting both,
Cheers,

Neil

Padfield wrote:My favourite this year was this egg-laying female, photographed on 7th May on my local patch in the mountains

Some beautiful images in this thread, but I'm a sucker for behavioural shots and immature stages. Loved this one!

Cheers,

- Pete

Green Hairstreak

Time was when the green one and I weren’t on friendly terms. But since I’ve discovered/been introduced to a few different sites locally our relationship is much more amicable.
This was taken on my second visit to my Duke site. I’ve now worked out that this is a late emerging site and so there were no Dukes but this Greenstreak was the compensation. I selected it as to me it’s the best shot that I’ve ever taken of this species, so a really easy choice for me to make! Have a goodun

Wurzel

These from a beautiful and reliable site just outside of Coalville in Leicestershire, where large numbers inhabit the wild bilberry bushes.