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Large White - Favourite Photo of 2015

Week 9

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

I saw these Large Whites at St Margarets on the Cliffs in Kent on the 31st of July, the weather was very windy but I shot the photo in the sheltered field near by.It was a Large White day on the cliffs loads of them every where. Goldie

A better year for this species than 2014, although by no means as commonplace as they can be.

My best image was probably this spring emergee, taken nectaring on Bergenia in Linda Vista Gardens, Abergavenny, in early April:

I have observed before that the number of photos one takes bears no relationship to the abundance of the various species. Out of the 863 photos of British butterflies that I collected this year, only two are of the Large White! In these circumstances, choosing a 'favourite' was not too arduous...
The Olympus camera does help, when taking white butterflies, because its electronic viewfinder gives visual indication of any over-exposed areas, which makes setting exposure compensation very easy.

In this case, I used -0.7EV.

Mike

Nothing much to say about this individual... but what was unusual was that in an hour on a cool and cloudy July morning at Barnack I saw about 5 male Chalkhills - and then singletons of another dozen species, without every getting a repeat.

These had a reasonably good year for me and saw them on most sites I visited through the season. My fav is this female I took near Eastbourne at the end of September.

I didn't take many Large White photos this year. The one below was taken in my garden just as he took off and I quite like the fully open wings and the proboscis still tucked into the dandelion.
Cheers,

Neil

I'd never noticed those black markings on the upper hindwings before, Neil.

That's probably because Large Whites never pose with their wings stretched out meaning that the only way to see them like this is when they're launching themselves into the air.

David M wrote:I'd never noticed those black markings on the upper hindwings before................

By coincidence, I was reading 'Messages from Psyche' by Philip Howse, just before i saw your post and the cover photo shows several in-flight shots of Large Whites. These all show the marking on the hind wings very clearly! In fact, they are usually seen in underside views (look at those above, in this thread) but we, perhaps, tend to assume that they are simply the fore wing markings 'showing through'.

Mike

Hi Folks,

Here is a photo from January 14th, south of France.
Moral is high because this date just shows how close the start (or false start) of the 2016 season really is !! Chris

Large White

There seemed to be even fewer of this species than last year, in fact I can possibly count the number positively identified on my hands. Of the few that I did encounter this has to be my favourite and was taken back in July on my trip to Botany Bay. It was a great day, I raced and beat the cloud and amongst Wood Whites this stood out as possibly he second most impressive sighting of the day as I managed to get really close and get a nice sharp image. So what I lacked in quantity I felt was made up for me by this quality image. Have a goodun

Wurzel

I didn't think there were quite as many as last year in my part of the world. However, some of those I saw were pretty big, including one foolishly tussling with a Purple Emperor in Botany Bay that approached the latter in size - but not agility. It certainly didn't put off the Emperor from coming down to the path a minute or two later. Another particularly large one made an appearance at Bedfont Lakes on 25th June. I also saw quite a few in my sister's garden near York at the end of August, including the traditional infestation of caterpillars on her nasturtiums.These colourful larvae always take me back to childhood when we used to race them along the front drive...

Dave